Alexander Skabichevsky

Alexander Mikhailovich Skabichevsky (, September 27 (o.s., 15), 1838, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – January 11, 1911, o.s., December 29, 1910) 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.

Biography Skabichevsky was born in Saint Petersburg into the family of a minor state official, the descendant of an old noble Ruthenian family. He studied first at the Larin gymnasium, then (in 1856–1861) at the Saint Petersburg University. After graduation, Skabichevsky went to work for a short while at the office of Saint Petersburg governor Prince Suvorov. 1864 saw him editing the stock market bulletin in Yaroslavl. For several years he worked as a teacher in different schools, including the Larin gymnasium.

Skabichevsky theorized that there was a pattern in European thought of movements going through two phases: the abstract or philosophical phase and the practical one. He saw the literature of the 1860s as the abstract phase of Russian literature, while the populism that followed represented the practical phase. He often clashed with the early Russian symbolists, but he saw them as part of the practical phase as well. He felt that some of Ivan Turgenev's stories showed more of an affinity with symbolism than realism, while he had a negative view of the works of Fyodor Tyutchev, generally considered as a forerunner of symbolism. Skabichevsky found the descriptions of war experiences in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to be over-simplified, and held a negative view of some of Anton Chekhov's early works.

Skabichevsky could sometimes lash out severely. He once wrote an article on The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky and judged that the author "as an artist and novelist was very negligent and sometimes demonstrated an amazing lack of talent."