Masalskii, Konstantin

Masal’skii, Konstantin Petrovich 

Born Sept. 13 (25), 1802, in Yaroslavl; died Sept. 9 (21), 1861, in St. Petersburg. Russian writer.

Masal’skii was the son of a government functionary. From 1821 to 1842 he was a bureaucrat. He began to publish in 1821. From 1842 to 1852 he edited the magazine Syn otechestva (Son of the Fatherland), in which he published his articles and reviews (mainly anonymously). He was the author of historical novels and novellas: The Musketeers (1832), The Russian Icarus (1833), The Biron Regency (1834), The Siege of Uglich (1841), On Icy Hills (1848), and Lieutenant de Vaisseau and the Lieutenant (1853); he also wrote dramatic scenes in verse, poetry, and fables. Character delineation in his historical works is pallid and based on the conservative viewpoint of a nobleman. Masal’skii was against the natural school of V. G. Belinskii. He wrote a parody on N. V. Gogol’s Dead Souls (1843). Masal’skii was the first to translate Don Quixote by Cervantes into Russian (1838).

REFERENCES

Belinskii, V. G. “Sochineniia K. Masal’skogo.” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 9. Moscow, 1955.
Pinchuk, A. “Russkii istoricheskii roman.” Filologicheskie zapiski, 1914, vol. 1.
Istoriia russkogo romana, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1962.
Istoriia russkoi literatury XIX veka. Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’. Edited by K. D. Muratova. Moscow-Leningrad, 1962.

I. A. SHCHUROV