classic Russian literature

Classic Russian literature refers to the major works of Russian fiction, poetry, and drama from roughly the early 19th to early 20th century—the era of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gogol.

The tradition is known for psychological depth, philosophical weight, and sprawling novels exploring morality, suffering, and the Russian soul: I finally got through War and Peace—classic Russian literature is no light reading.

The phrase sometimes extends to Soviet-era writers like Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn.