Ivan Andreyevich Krylov is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journalist, he only discovered his true genre at the age of 40. While many of his earlier fables were loosely based on Aesop's and La Fontaine's, later fables were original work, often with a satirical bent.
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.
Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov was a Russian novelist best known for his novels The Same Old Story, Oblomov (1859), and The Precipice. He also served in many official capacities, including the position of censor.
Pancho Haralanov Vladigerov was a Bulgarian composer, pedagogue, and pianist.
Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov, a Russian critic and writer, became one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social criticism, and histories of the ancient Russian social order. His father Sergey Aksakov and his sister Vera Aksakova were writers, and his younger brother, Ivan Aksakov, was a journalist.
Knave of Diamonds, also called Jack Of Diamonds, was a circle of avant-garde artists in Russia, heavily influenced by French styles, who sought "to unite the stylistic system of Cezanne with the primitive traditions of folk art, the Russian lubok and tradesman's signs." Named for the eponymous exhibition held in Moscow in 1910, the group's intention was to provoke the art establishment in Russia, challenge "good taste," and shock. The group remained active until December 1917.
Mykhailo Oleksandrovych Maksymovych was a professor in plant biology, Ukrainian historian and writer in the Russian Empire of a Cossack background.
Aristarkh Vasilyevich Lentulov was a major Russian avant-garde artist of Cubist orientation who also worked on set designs for the theatre.
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer best known for publishing nearly 600 East Slavic and Russian fairy and folk tales, one of the largest collections of folklore in the world. This collection was not restricted to Great Russia, but included folk tales from what are now Ukraine and Belarus as well. The first edition of his collection was published in eight volumes from 1855 to 1867, earning him the reputation of being the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm.
In Slavic folklore, the rusalka is a female entity, often malicious toward mankind and frequently associated with water, it has counterparts in other parts of Europe, such as the French Melusine and the Germanic Nixie. Folklorists have proposed a variety of origins for the entity, including that they may originally stem from Slavic paganism, where they may have been seen as benevolent spirits. Rusalki appear in a variety of media in modern popular culture, particularly in Slavic language-speaking countries, where they frequently resemble the concept of the mermaid.
A lubok is a Russian popular print, characterized by simple graphics and narratives derived from literature, religious stories, and popular tales. Lubki prints were used as decoration in houses and inns. Early examples from the late 17th and early 18th centuries were woodcuts, followed by engravings or etchings, and from mid-19th century lithography. They sometimes appeared in series, which might be regarded as predecessors of the modern comic strip. Cheap and simple books, similar to chapbooks, which mostly consisted of pictures, are called lubok literature. Both pictures and literature are commonly referred to simply as lubki. The Russian word lubok derives from lub - a special type of board on which pictures were printed.
Lev Emmanuilovich Razgon was a Soviet Russian journalist, writer, a prisoner of the Gulag from 1938 to 1942 and again from 1950 to 1955 and, latterly, a human rights activist.
Yevhen Pavlovych Hrebinka was a Ukrainian romantic prose writer, poet, and philanthropist. He wrote in both the Ukrainian and Russian languages. He was an older brother of the architect Mykola Hrebinka.
Yuriy Ivanovich Venelin was a Rusyn slavist, folklorist, ethnographer and philologist best known for his research on the language, history and culture of Bulgaria and its people.
Alexand(e)r Dmitriyevich Kastalsky was a Russian composer and folklorist.
The donkey walk is a Russian Orthodox Palm Sunday ritual re-enactment of Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The best known historical donkey walk was practised in Moscow from 1558 until 1693. The Metropolitan and later Patriarch of Moscow, representing Jesus Christ, rode on a donkey, while the Tsar of Russia humbly led the donkey on foot.
The Russian folklore, i.e., the folklore of Russian people, takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are also an important part of Slavic paganism. The oldest bylinas of Kievan cycle were recorded in the Russian North, especially in Karelia, where most of the Finnish national epic Kalevala was recorded as well.
Koliada or Koleda is a Slavic pseudo-deity, a personification of the newborn winter Sun and symbol of the New Year's cycle. The figure of Koliada is connected with the solar cycle, passing through the four seasons and from one substantial condition into another.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Stepanov was an artist, caricaturist and editor from the Russian Empire. Army general Pyotr Alexandrovich Stepanov was his brother.
