The Lives of Remarkable People

The Lives of Remarkable People (Russian: Жизнь замечательных людей or the acronym, ЖЗЛ,[1][2] commonly referred to as "жэзээлка")[3][4] is a book series comprising both fictional and biographical works intended for a mass audience.

The genre format was guided by educational objectives, presenting popular biographical essays focused on the significant achievements of individuals who made notable contributions to world civilization.

In the 1950s, the editors of The Lives of Remarkable People established three main principles for selecting texts to be published, which have since been adhered to: scientific accuracy, high literary quality, and entertainment.

Over the years, Molodaya Gvardiya invited notable figures such as Lev Gumilevsky, Sergei Durylin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Marietta Shaginian, Kornei Chukovsky, Juri Lotman, Alexei Losev, and Nathan Eidelman to contribute biographies.

At the same time, since the 1990s, the thematic range of the series has expanded considerably, encompassing biographies of tsars, Orthodox saints, émigré writers, figures from the White movement, and Soviet and foreign film actors.

The biographies in Pavlenkov's series were relatively short, resembling popular scientific sketches, and were priced at about 25 kopecks, making them accessible to gymnasium and university students.

According to Rubakin's recollections, these books had a profound influence on prominent thinkers and writers, including Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Vernadsky, Ivan Bunin, and Alexei Tolstoy during their student years.

Additionally, in 1933, Gorky rejected Mikhail Bulgakov's biography of Molière for its "non-Marxist approach" and "excessive emphasis on the personal attitude to the subject", delaying its publication in the series until 1962.

From the initial editions, the cover featured a pen-and-ink portrait of the subject, created based on sketches by artists such as Peter Alyakrinsky, Grigory Bershadsky, and Nikolai Ilyin.

The genre of biography gained considerable popularity in the country, leading various publishing houses to produce their own series, such as Flaming Revolutionaries, Life in Art, and Thinkers of the Past.

According to M. Izmailova, the Soviet reading public, entering a period of intense spiritual exploration, sought role models among figures from both distant and recent history, contrasting their tumultuous lives with their own "unheroic" realities.

[27][28][26] Over the years, Molodaya Gvardiya invited Anatoly Levandovsky, Lev Gumilevsky, Sergei Durylin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Marietta Shaginian, Korney Chukovsky, Yuri Lotman, Aleksei Losev, and Nathan Eidelman to contribute to the series.

[29] After 1960, the series began regularly publishing biographies of Latin American figures, including Bolivar, Pancho Villa, Miranda, Benito Juarez, Che Guevara, and Salvador Allende.

For instance, in the volume Olympians, the essay about speed skater Inga Artamonova concluded with the phrase "Her life ended too soon", omitting the fact that she was murdered by her jealous husband, a detail often excluded from official obituaries.

[32] The editorial staff faced criticism from party structures, particularly during conflicts involving publicist Mikhail Lobanov and Alexander Yakovlev, which led to controversies surrounding a book about A. N. Ostrovsky.

Figures from the Soviet past were suddenly reinterpreted as either criminals or victims, while the spotlight shifted to previously unknown or marginalized individuals, including dissidents, pre-revolutionary tsars and dignitaries, and emerging stars of mass culture.

During this period, the genre of biography aimed at the mass public became dominated by media outlets focused on sensational details, and the emergence of the Internet provided strong competition.

Biographies of tsars, Orthodox saints, émigré writers, and figures from the White Movement began to appear, alongside a notable increase in translated literature that catered to the interests of the mass audience.

This work, which blends popular narrative with a wealth of factual detail, has been reprinted over a dozen times and reignited public interest in the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house and the biographical genre more broadly.

The genre format of the series was shaped by the goals of enlightenment, presenting popular biographical sketches that highlighted the significant achievements of individuals who made a lasting impact on world civilization.

He proposed a five-part tentative chronology:[32] In 2005, Valentin Yurkin, the editor-in-chief of the series and the general director of Molodaya Gvardiya, initiated a new cycle titled Lives of Remarkable People: Biography Continues.

The first issue focused on Boris Gromov, the governor of the Moscow region, and was presented as a revival of a tradition established by Florentiy Pavlenkov, who had published biographies of prominent figures such as Leo Tolstoy, Otto Bismarck and William Gladstone in the original series.

This analysis revealed that the structure of the biographies is not only anchored in factual milestones (such as birth, education, work, and death) but also reflects enduring notions of what constitutes a "remarkable person."

This decline in interest is attributed in part to the general reading public's preference for small, everyday details and personal weaknesses over the achievements of scientists.

For example, the biographies of Dmitry Likhachev (by Valery Popov), Viktor Shklovsky (by Vladimir Berezin), and Mikhail Bakhtin (by Alexei Korovashko) were penned by a professional writer and two literary critics, respectively.

Valery Popov, who utilized Likhachev's memoirs to recount his life, did not attempt to delve into the inner world of his subject, as the genre of biography relieved him of the need for artistic narrative.

Osovsky notes that V. S. Berezin's book may appear overly complex and stylistically intricate to the average reader of the series; however, it generally adheres to the conventional boundaries of the genre.

[76] Georgy Orekhanov, Vice Rector of the Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University, called the book "useful in terms of disseminating adequate views of Christianity" to a wide audience.

[77] However, it was also critiqued as evidence of the "profanation of the sacred and the secularization of Christianity", with some arguing that it represented a forced adaptation of the Church to contemporary society for ostensibly "missionary" purposes".

The literary critic Sergei Belyakov explicitly stated it:[83] The publishing house Molodaya Gvardiya is exploiting a gold mine of the The Lives of Remarkable People series.