Why did they always write about aristocrats?

They didn't?

>>8496903
Because aristocrats are the only Russians worth writing about.

>>8496905
All of their prime works are about rich landowners.

>>8496912
No that's still not true

>>8496903
Tolstoi literally wrote at the start of W&P that their lives are more interesting and that he couldn't understand the peasant mentality enough to write about them

>>8496918
For Tolstoy that's the case. Dostoevsky always wrote about gentlemen.

raskolikov was basically penniless and sofya was a peasant prostitute

>>8496903
Dostoevsky didn't, juging from the 8 novels by him which I've read.
Tolstoy did in the two I've read.
>>8496912
Crime and Punnishment is about a poor student. Notes from the Underground about an autist with bad liver.

tolstoy wrote about aristocrats to show how empty and meaningless their lives were

Because everybody wants to be a crat. The crat's the only cat who knows where it's at

>>8496903
Because they're bourgie LARPer NEETs

>>8496903
Tolstoy wrote about aristocrats because he was an aristocrat himself and write what you know, also >>8496924.

Regarding Dostoevsky, he didn't and you either don't know what an aristocrat is, you've never read him, or both.

>>8496903
Dosto did not write about aristocrats, only poor street trash pieces of shit who think they are.
Stop talking about authors you've never read.

>>8496941
Raskolnikov's family is impoverished aristocracy

>>8496924
>Try to read W&P
>Force myself through 300 pages of boring conversations, and melodrama.
>Realize that Tolstoy is boring as fuck.

You're comment perfectly explains why his work is shit.

>>8497008
I got the impression they were upper middle class

>>8496903

Scanned through didn't see a correct answer.

Only the wealthy are going to purchase, talk about, and promote the book. That's how society was at the time.There was also heavy censorship so anybody writing too directly towards the working class and not promoting the society's accepted ideals of elitism would be either censored or imprisoned by the ruling Tsar for kindling revolution.

Tolstoy had to work hard to not be overly critical of the state.

I know Dosteovsky wrote when heavily in debt, so he wrote for the same; he wrote whatever would sell to whomever could/would buy the book i.e the wealthy who could afford it

Anna Karamazov is my fave book by Tolstoyevsky. War and Crime is second.

>>8496903
It's easier to write about people who don't have to work most of the day.

>>8497030
>You're
your comment perfectly explains why you couldn't enjoy w&p

>>8496903
poor people literally don't matter

>>8497402
this

>>8496941
>>8496978

Not OP here but I feel like The Idiot took place in high society.

There's nothing I can say about The Brothers Karamazov that won't get me flamed to hell over semantics, but I'm not going to spend a half hour qualifying every word I'm about to use so everybody can go fuck themselves. But the Karamazovs were kind of reaching for high society, even if Fyodor and Dimitri were especially uncultured. I don't know if you're particular about the literal use of "aristocratic" but the aristocracy is present in The Brothers Karamazov.

>>8496903
Mнoгo ли чeлoвeкy зeмли нyжнo?

>ctrl+f mujik
>0 results

I am dissapoint

>>8497402
>>8497420
this

Russian society in the 19th century was entirely composed of cosmopolitan Europeanised intellectuals reigning over a gigantic population of serfs they were probably barely able to understand

It's not an issue of "the educated elite" or "the upper classes," in Russia you were either a literate guy or you were a serf. Some books ARE about serfs or about marginal people, often military men, but they tend to be very stereotyped.

>>8496931
>Raskolnikov
>gentleman
>Underground Man
>gentleman
>Alyosha
>gentleman

>>8497035
Raskolnikov's mother had a 120 rouble per year pension, and she could barely afford to send him 30 roubles to keep him in school. Raskolnikov hasn't paid his rent in months and keeps having to sign promisory notes. they're poor

>>8496903
>Why did they always write about aristocrats?
Target audience.

Same with poetry, chivalrous romance and really most of everything that has ever been written, until a proper spread of literacy happened

>>8497336
Most of Dostoevsky's novels were originally released in serial through newspapers.

>>8498243
The Underground Man was a supreme gentleman.

>>8497445

Бoльшe

>>8497402
this
and I'd add most writers are aristocrats. you'd have to be. there's not much money it it (unless you produce a commercial hit that becomes popular during your lifetime, which is rare), and it eats up all you're time.