How Russian writers invented serialized stories long before the advent of TV

Russian writers often sold their works more than once: first as magazine serializations, then as books and their reprints. Novels were published in installments, sometimes stretching out over years, and the public awaited the next chapter of ‘War and Peace’ with as much anticipation as, more recently, the new season of ‘Game of Thrones’.

This system benefited everyone. Magazines paid royalties that supported the writer, while they worked on the text. The number of subscribers to the periodicals increased. And readers watched as the work was being created before their eyes in real time. The following are the most striking examples of such epics.

‘Eugene Onegin’ by Alexander Pushkin

This novel in verse about the intertwining fates of a romantic rural noblewoman and a disillusioned young man was published in separate chapters over the course of seven years, from February 1825 to January 1832. This was Pushkin's unique marketing strategy for its time. Each chapter sold for 5 rubles – a rather high price for a booklet of 50–70 pages, but the public still snapped them up anyway.

In his book ‘Book Publisher Alexander Pushkin’, literary historian Sergei Gessen estimated that sales of individual chapters of the novel earned the poet approximately 25,000 rubles. The first complete edition of the novel in one volume was published at the end of March 1833. Many sources cite the figure of 12,000 rubles – the amount Pushkin received from the publisher.

During Pushkin's lifetime, another complete edition was published (1836), which also brought in royalties. Thus, the total income from ‘Eugene Onegin’ amounted to over 37,000 rubles, which was a huge sum at the time. That's approximately 32,000,000 rubles today (approx. $400,000). But, supporting a family, his social life and gambling debts were costly. Therefore, in the end, Pushkin died bankrupt.

‘Oblomov’ by Ivan Goncharov

The publication of ‘Oblomov’ spanned ten years. Goncharov conceived the idea for the novel – about a Russian landowner, who would love to do something useful, but simply cannot bring himself to get off the couch – in the late 1840s, shortly after the success of his first book, ‘An Ordinary Story’. In 1849, the central chapter of his future work, ‘Oblomov's Dream’, was published in the ‘Sovremennik’ journal, edited by Nikolai Nekrasov. The author himself called it "the overture to the entire novel". The exact amount of the fee for this publication is unknown, but Nekrasov wrote in a humorous poem that Goncharov's novels were "worth a whole house".

Then the work dragged on: In 1852, Goncharov embarked on a round-the-world voyage on the frigate ‘Pallada’, keeping travel notes and putting off work on ‘Oblomov’ for almost five years.

In Summer 1857, while the writer was undergoing treatment at the spa town of Marienbad, he wrote three parts of the novel at once and, the following year, he revised the text, adding new scenes.

The novel was first published in 1859 in four issues of the ‘Otechestvennye Zapiski’ journal (January–April). According to the contract, Goncharov received 10,000 rubles (equivalent to 8,750,000 modern rubles or $110,000) for publishing the novel in both the journal and as a separate book. In addition, out of the 3,500 copies, the author received 100 copies free of charge, with no deduction from his royalties.

The publication caused widespread public stir: Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev praised the book, while the distinct character trait described in the work became known as ‘Oblomovism’.

‘The Idiot’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky was constantly short of money, so he often published his works in magazines in installments, sometimes even receiving an advance for texts he had not yet written. The novel ‘The Idiot’, about a prince whose meekness resembles that of Christ, was published intermittently throughout 1868 in the ‘Russky Vestnik’ magazine.

Dostoevsky's rate at ‘Russky Vestnik’ was 150 rubles per printed sheet. The novel's total length was approximately 40 printed sheets and the publisher paid 7,000 rubles (6 million 125 thousand modern rubles or approximately $75,000).

The publication process lasted a full year and was plagued by delays: Dostoevsky worked on the novel while abroad (first in Geneva, then in Florence) and was unable to always submit the manuscripts on time.

The novel was published as a separate edition much later – only in 1874. The book was released in two volumes. For this edition, Dostoevsky made minor stylistic revisions to the text.

‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy

The seven parts of the novel Anna Karenina were published between 1875 and 1877 in Mikhail Katkov's ‘Russky Vestnik’ magazine. The eighth and final part was published as a separate book, due to differences in opinion between the author and the publisher. Nevertheless, Tolstoy received 20,000 rubles for ‘Anna Karenina’ (equivalent to 17 million 500 thousand modern rubles or $220,000), a sum comparable to the price of a house in Moscow. He also received an advance of 10,000 rubles in advance, based on 500 rubles per printed sheet. This sum placed him among the highest-paid writers in Russia.

As the chapters were published, influential people expressed mixed opinions about the novel. Saltykov-Shchedrin dubbed it a "cow novel", Tchaikovsky thought of it as "vulgar nonsense", Dostoevsky called it "perfection", while Nekrasov responded with an epigram: "Tolstoy, you have proven with patience and talent / That a woman should not cheat / With either a gentleman of the bedchamber or an aide-de-camp / When she is a wife and mother."

‘The Golovlev Family’ by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

Initially, the writer did not plan to write a novel. The work about three generations of a landowning family grew out of a series of satirical essays titled ‘Well-Intentioned Speeches’, which he published in ‘Otechestvennye Zapiski’. The impetus for the development of the theme came from a letter from Ivan Turgenev, who highly praised the first story and encouraged the author to continue.

The essays were published between 1875 and 1880 and were published separately in 1880. Subsequently, in 1883, a second, separate edition with minor revisions, was published.

There’s no exact information on how much money Saltykov-Shchedrin received for these essays, but his rate is known: 200-250 rubles per printed sheet. The total length of the novel ‘The Golovlyov Family’ is approximately 12-13 printed sheets. This means his fee was most likely around 2,500-3,000 rubles (approx. 2,000,000 rubles or $30,000).