in Russian literature, a written narrative that imitates a spontaneous oral account in its use of dialect, slang, and the peculiar idiom of that persona. Among the well-known writers who have used this device are Nikolay Leskov (Leskov, Nikolay Semyonovich), Aleksey Remizov (Remizov, Aleksey Mikhaylovich), Mikhail Zoshchenko (Zoshchenko, Mikhail Mikhaylovich), and Yevgeny Zamyatin (Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich).

The word is of Russian origin and literally means “tale”; it is derived from skazat, “to say.”