Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, Ledi Makbet mtsenskogo uezda [Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk]

Robert Chandler (Queen Mary, University of London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.1.00: Slavic and Russian Writing and Culture: Old, Medieval and Tsarist, 700-1917.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1865

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Leskov's most famous work, Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo Uezda [Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk], is Shakespearean both in its linguistic vitality and in its emotional intensity. Leskov was not the first writer to transport a Shakespearean hero to the Russian provinces – Turgenev had already published his story “Gamlet shchigrovskgogo uezda” [“Hamlet of the Shchigry District”] (in his Zapiski okhotnika [Tales from a Hunter's Album, or A Sportsman's Sketches, 1852]) – but none of his contemporaries, not even Dostoevsky, ever came so close to recreating the essence of Shakespearean tragedy. While writing this story, Leskov appears to have frightened even himself. According to a friend, he once said:

You cannot imagine what I sometimes go through when staying up late at night. (...) While I was writing my ‘Lady Macbeth', the effect of overstrained nerves and isolation...

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1073 words

Citation: Chandler, Robert. "Ledi Makbet mtsenskogo uezda". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21812, accessed 09 June 2026.]

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, Ledi Makbet mtsenskogo uezda [Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk]

Dates

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Genres and Modes

Resources

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