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gold medal with Lenin's image and a cash pay-
ment initially set at 7,500 rubles. International
Lenin prizes for foreigners who, in the eyes of the
party and Soviet government, promoted peace
and international understanding were first
awarded in 1949 (known as Stalin Prizes from
1949 to 1956). Their recipients received the Lenin
medal and a cash award of 10,000 rubles.
Leskov, Nikolai Semyonovich
(1831-1895)
writer
Considered by many to be the ablest of Russian
storytellers, Leskov was born in the town of
Gorokhovo on February 16, 1831. In his work,
Leskov incorporated experiences from extensive
travel across Russia from the time of his child-
hood through his professional life to produce col-
orful, satirical accounts of Russian provincial life
that reached a broad public because they were
written in the voice of the lower middle classes.
His best-known novel,
Cathedral Folk
(1872), pre-
sents a panoramic view of the provincial clergy,
drawn from his childhood travels with his grand-
mother to various monasteries, while
Enchanted
Wanderer
(1873) uses material from a visit to the
monasteries of Lake Ladoga. In early novels such
as
Nowhere to Go
(1864) and
At Daggers Drawn
(1870-71), Leskov invited the wrath of the radi-
cal intelligentsia for his attacks on them, but fol-
lowing a trip to western Europe in 1875, he
became more sympathetic to the intelligentsia
and critical of the Orthodox Church. In later
years he became a Tolstoyan in his political
views. Leskov's popularity in his lifetime rested
more on picaresque tales such as “The Tale of
Cross-Eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea”
(1881). But contemporary audiences are pro-
bably more familiar with “Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk District” (1866), a bleaker work that
ends with a double suicide by drowning, which
Dmitrii
SHOSTAKOVICH
adapted for an opera in
1934 amidst great criticism from Soviet cultural
watchdogs. Other works by Leskov include
The
Sealed Angel
(1873),
On the Edge of the World
(1875),
Trivialities of Clerical Life
(1878), and
Night
Birds
(1891). He died on March 5, 1895 in St.
Petersburg.
Lermontov, Mikhail Iurevich
(1814-1841)
writer
Perhaps the truest romantic of all Russian poets
in his character and work, Lermontov was born
in Moscow to a family that originally came from
Scotland (Learmont). He entered Moscow Uni-
versity in 1830 but was expelled two years later.
He then attended the School of Cavalry Cadets in
St. Petersburg and in 1834 received a commis-
sion as a cornet in the Life Guard Hussars (Hus-
sars of the Guard). His literary career began
controversially enough with the poem “Death of
a Poet,” protesting against the death of the poet
Aleksandr
PUSHKIN
in a duel (1837), and the
cover-up that followed. The poem stirred St.
Petersburg society and earned Lermontov a
court-martial and a posting to the Caucasus, at
the time a turbulent frontier region. Confronta-
tional by nature, Lermontov was killed, like his
hero Pushkin, in a duel. Lermontov's place in
Russian literary history rests on two major works,
the novel
A Hero of Our Time
(1840) and the poem
“Demon.” In
A Hero of Our Time,
the first major
prose novel of Russian literature, he further
develops the themes of the “superfluous man”
begun by Pushkin. Lermontov not only created
one of the great romantic heroes of 19th-century
Russian literature, he also contributed greatly to
the creation of a romanticized image of the Cau-
casus, an exotic borderland peopled by bandits
and free men. In “Demon” he created a brilliant
supernatural portrait of demoniac love, which
influenced generations of Russian artists, includ-
ing Mikhail
VRUBEL
, who painted a whole cycle
of works based on the poem.
Likhachev, Dmitrii Sergeevich
(1906-2000)
scholar
An eminent scholar with an international repu-
tation, Likhachev was instrumental in fostering
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