Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era. He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet, as well as the founder of modern Russian literature.
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on Russian literature is felt in modern times, through his poetry, but also his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel.
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about the Russian peasantry made him a hero of liberal and radical circles in the Russian intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century, particularly as represented by Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue. As the editor of several literary journals, notably Sovremennik, Nekrasov was also singularly successful and influential.
Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin was a Russian historian, writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for his fundamental History of the Russian State, a 12-volume national history.
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic.
Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his life, is also reflected in his works. Maykov spent four years translating the epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign (1870) into modern Russian. He translated the folklore of Belarus, Greece, Serbia and Spain, as well as works by Heine, Adam Mickiewicz and Goethe, among others. Several of Maykov's poems were set to music by Russian composers, among them Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.
Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich was a Ukrainian-born Russian poet and translator best known for his idyll The Fishers (1822). His translation of the Iliad (1807–29) is still the standard one.
Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker was a Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist revolutionary of German descent.
Anna Petrovna Kern was a Russian socialite and memoirist, notable as the addressee of a noted love poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1825.
Sovremennik was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in Saint Petersburg in 1836–1866. It came out four times a year in 1836–1843 and once a month after that. The magazine published poetry, prose, critical, historical, ethnographic and other material.
Yakov Petrovich Polonsky was a leading Pushkinist poet who wrote poems faithful to the traditions of Russian Romantic poetry during the heyday of realistic prose.
Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy was a controversial Russian editor, writer, translator, and historian; his brother was the critic and journalist Ksenofont Polevoy and his sister the writer and publisher of folktales Ekaterina Avdeeva.
Count Vladimir Alexandrovich Sollogub was a minor Russian writer, author of novelettes, essays, plays, and memoirs.
Georgy Viktorovich Adamovich was a Russian poet of the acmeist school, and a literary critic, translator and memoirist. He also lectured on Russian literature at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Count Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov, was a Russian poet, representing the late period of classicism in Russian literature. Count Khvostov, as he was widely known, was an exceedingly prolific author of poems, fables, epigrams, etc., invariably archaic and pompous, making him an easy target for humourists and fellow poets who ridiculed him relentlessly. In modern times much has been done to separate the comical myth from Khvostov's real legacy and give credit to an extraordinary poetry enthusiast, but the stereotype prevails and the name of Count Khvostov remains synonymous in Russia with wanton graphomania and self-important pomposity.
Alexander Mikhailovich Skabichevsky was a Russian literary historian, critic and memoirist, part of the Narodnik movement, best known for his series of biographies of the 19th century Russian writers.
Mikhail Vasilyevich Avdeev was a Russian novelist, playwright and publicist, best known for the Tamarin trilogy, published in 1849–1852 by Sovremennik.
Andrey Alexandrovich Krayevsky was a Russian publisher and journalist, best known for his work as an editor-in-chief of Otechestvennye Zapiski (1839–1867), the influential literary journal of which he was also publisher. Another well-known publication Krayevsky founded was the popular newspaper Golos.
Nikolai Ivanovich Khmelnitsky was a Russian dramatist, literary critic and translator. In 1812-1814, as an army officer, he was Mikhail Kutuzov's adjutant, and later, in 1829-1838, served as a governor of Smolensk. Khmelnitsky's chosen genre was the saloon comedy, and many prominent authors, Alexander Pushkin among them, valued him as an influential figure in the Russian literary scene of the 1820s.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Engelhardt was a Russian writer, critic, poet, journalist, memoirist and literary historian, co-founder and one of the original leaders of the Russian Assembly. The writer and agricultural scientist Alexander Engelgardt was his father.
