Anton Goremyka
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| Author | Dmitry Grigorovich |
|---|---|
| Original title | Антон-горемыка |
| Country | Russian Empire |
| Language | Russian |
| Publisher | Sovremennik |
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Publication date
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1847 |
| Media type | print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Village |
Anton-Goremyka (Russian: Антон-горемыка, Luckless Anton) is a novel by Dmitry Grigorovich, first published by Sovremennik, in 1847, vol. 6, issue XI. In retrospect it is regarded as arguably the strongest anti-serfdom statement in the Russian literature of its time.
Grigorovich wrote Anton Goremyka in the summer of 1847, while in the country. The plot had been conceived in Saint Petersburg earlier that year. The young author also had talks with Nikolay Nekrasov who assured him that he would be more than happy to see the novel published in his own magazine. "Before my leaving the city for the country, and later in a personal letter, Nekrasov insisted that I should send the novel promptly to his journal," Grigorovich later remembered. "By this time I've already had more experience, so the storyline could be constructed more carefully. Besides, I now had better knowledge of the common people's ways and language. Nevertheless, this novel demanded no lesser work, may be even more than the first one," the author wrote in his autobiographical notes. After the novel (which he himself felt very pleased with) was finished, Grigorovich sent it to Nekrasov and soon learned that "both Nekrasov and Panayev liked it a lot."
Grigorovich has read the novel for the first time in Nekrasov's house. Ivan Panayev's cousin, also a member of the audience, remembered how touched and disturbed were all present. "Avdotya Panayeva burst into tears. Panayev and Nekrasov sat still without motion, I sobbed in the fartherst corner of a divan. 'Do not be ashamed of your tears and mark my words,... what Grigorovich has just read, will have enormous bearing not just on the state of our literature, but on the nation in general,' Panayev pronounced, addressing the teenager.
Originally Anton Goremyka ended with a scene of riot, serf peasants setting manager Nikita Fyodorovich's house on fire and pushing the hated tyrant into it. As such it was promptly rejected by the censorship committee. Alexander Nikitenko, an influential censor who happened to be a member of the Sovremennik stuff, managed to persuade his colleagues in te Committee otherwise. What he did first, though, was completely re-write the final scene himself. "Without informing anybody, Nikitenko made up the finale of his own, in which the manager remains alive, while the rioters, before the deportation, repent publicly," Grigorovich wrote. "Censors have all but crashed it, then the finale was changed, the scene of a mob riot removed," Vissarion Belinsky informed Vasily Botkin in a letter.
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