Wendy S. Mercer
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263884
- eISBN:
- 9780191734830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263884.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Only a few months after his return from Spitzbergen, Marmier's next journey took him to Holland on a mission for Charles de Rémusat, who at that time was Ministre de l'Intérieur. The mandate from ...
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Only a few months after his return from Spitzbergen, Marmier's next journey took him to Holland on a mission for Charles de Rémusat, who at that time was Ministre de l'Intérieur. The mandate from Rémusat was in fact a pretext to allow Marmier to complete his studies on the northern countries, and also to write a book on Dutch literature. The resulting volume of Marmier's Lettres sur la Hollande was dedicated to Rémusat. Early in 1842 Marmier left Paris again, this time heading for Russia, Finland, and Poland. His impressions were recorded in a series of outspoken and highly controversial articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes that were then published in book form under the title Lettres sur la Russie, la Finlande et la Pologne.Less
Only a few months after his return from Spitzbergen, Marmier's next journey took him to Holland on a mission for Charles de Rémusat, who at that time was Ministre de l'Intérieur. The mandate from Rémusat was in fact a pretext to allow Marmier to complete his studies on the northern countries, and also to write a book on Dutch literature. The resulting volume of Marmier's Lettres sur la Hollande was dedicated to Rémusat. Early in 1842 Marmier left Paris again, this time heading for Russia, Finland, and Poland. His impressions were recorded in a series of outspoken and highly controversial articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes that were then published in book form under the title Lettres sur la Russie, la Finlande et la Pologne.
KEITH NEILSON
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198204701
- eISBN:
- 9780191676369
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204701.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses public and popular views of Russian life, literature, and culture. Although there was generally a public revulsion against anarchists and nihilists, this was tempered by a ...
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This chapter discusses public and popular views of Russian life, literature, and culture. Although there was generally a public revulsion against anarchists and nihilists, this was tempered by a belief that many of their activities were justified by the behaviour of the repressive regimes that had spawned the movements. The favourable reception in Britain of Peter Kropotkin underlined the fact that personal qualities could lift an anarchist above the general condemnation of the breed in the public's mind. However they interpreted Russia, it is clear that the British public had definite views of that country and for the most part, these views were unfavourable.Less
This chapter discusses public and popular views of Russian life, literature, and culture. Although there was generally a public revulsion against anarchists and nihilists, this was tempered by a belief that many of their activities were justified by the behaviour of the repressive regimes that had spawned the movements. The favourable reception in Britain of Peter Kropotkin underlined the fact that personal qualities could lift an anarchist above the general condemnation of the breed in the public's mind. However they interpreted Russia, it is clear that the British public had definite views of that country and for the most part, these views were unfavourable.
Kornei Chukovsky
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300106114
- eISBN:
- 9780300137972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300106114.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This is an abridged version of Kornei Chukovsky's diary, a voluminous document spanning seven decades and three generations (1901–1969), beginning in pre-revolutionary Russia and encompassing almost ...
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This is an abridged version of Kornei Chukovsky's diary, a voluminous document spanning seven decades and three generations (1901–1969), beginning in pre-revolutionary Russia and encompassing almost the entire Soviet era. Contained in twenty-nine notebooks, the diary is a commentary on some of the most important historical events of the period, including the Russian Revolution of 1917. Chukovsky also writes about the literary ferment that began in the late 1950s and persisted into the early 1960s, and how he listened closely and avidly to the new voices in Russian literature. In addition, he speaks about censorship under Joseph Stalin, and describes his friendship with such major literary figures as Anna Akhmatova and Isaac Babel.Less
This is an abridged version of Kornei Chukovsky's diary, a voluminous document spanning seven decades and three generations (1901–1969), beginning in pre-revolutionary Russia and encompassing almost the entire Soviet era. Contained in twenty-nine notebooks, the diary is a commentary on some of the most important historical events of the period, including the Russian Revolution of 1917. Chukovsky also writes about the literary ferment that began in the late 1950s and persisted into the early 1960s, and how he listened closely and avidly to the new voices in Russian literature. In addition, he speaks about censorship under Joseph Stalin, and describes his friendship with such major literary figures as Anna Akhmatova and Isaac Babel.
Beasley Rebecca
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199660865
- eISBN:
- 9780191757761
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199660865.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The Russian literary canon for English readers is usually assumed to be the creation of a small number of amateur translators. But what was the role of the growing professional and academic Russian ...
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The Russian literary canon for English readers is usually assumed to be the creation of a small number of amateur translators. But what was the role of the growing professional and academic Russian community? This chapter describes and analyses the teaching and learning of Russian language and literature in Britain, focusing primarily on the early years of the twentieth century when the subject was in an intense period of development. The chapter details and contextualises the resources available to those who wanted to learn Russian independently (Russian primers, dictionaries, grammars and parallel texts), and the variety of institutions that provided Russian lessons or other means of learning the language. Drawing on archives, memoirs, contemporary articles and debates, this chapter analyses the political, ideological and cultural forces that determined the mode of teaching devised, the curricula followed and, above all, the literary canons established.Less
The Russian literary canon for English readers is usually assumed to be the creation of a small number of amateur translators. But what was the role of the growing professional and academic Russian community? This chapter describes and analyses the teaching and learning of Russian language and literature in Britain, focusing primarily on the early years of the twentieth century when the subject was in an intense period of development. The chapter details and contextualises the resources available to those who wanted to learn Russian independently (Russian primers, dictionaries, grammars and parallel texts), and the variety of institutions that provided Russian lessons or other means of learning the language. Drawing on archives, memoirs, contemporary articles and debates, this chapter analyses the political, ideological and cultural forces that determined the mode of teaching devised, the curricula followed and, above all, the literary canons established.
Kathleen Parthé
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300098518
- eISBN:
- 9780300138221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300098518.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter examines how the literary canon in Russia came to be perceived as national territory and property to be defended not so much from external threats as from aliens within. It suggests that ...
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This chapter examines how the literary canon in Russia came to be perceived as national territory and property to be defended not so much from external threats as from aliens within. It suggests that the periodic coming-together of spatial and cultural components of national identity with hyperethnicity influenced the interpretation of writers and texts which fell outside the borders of the “textual nation.” The chapter also analyzes the core identity of Russian literature, and discusses the distinction between genuine Russian writers and mere samozvantsy (pretenders).Less
This chapter examines how the literary canon in Russia came to be perceived as national territory and property to be defended not so much from external threats as from aliens within. It suggests that the periodic coming-together of spatial and cultural components of national identity with hyperethnicity influenced the interpretation of writers and texts which fell outside the borders of the “textual nation.” The chapter also analyzes the core identity of Russian literature, and discusses the distinction between genuine Russian writers and mere samozvantsy (pretenders).
Kathleen Parthé
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300098518
- eISBN:
- 9780300138221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300098518.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the end of the so-called dangerous text in Russian literature. It evaluates the whether the ten beliefs about the literature–state relationship and the paradigm for the ...
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This chapter examines the end of the so-called dangerous text in Russian literature. It evaluates the whether the ten beliefs about the literature–state relationship and the paradigm for the political reading of literary texts in Russia would hold up the closer scrutiny provided by the case studies in this book. The book analyzes the behavior of individual literary figures and suggests that keeping a distance from the state was not the only culturally sanctioned option for them. It also argues that the experiences of dangerous texts in the Soviet period are mostly hidden from the researcher because the primary experience of the text above or below ground comes down to one person reading silently.Less
This chapter examines the end of the so-called dangerous text in Russian literature. It evaluates the whether the ten beliefs about the literature–state relationship and the paradigm for the political reading of literary texts in Russia would hold up the closer scrutiny provided by the case studies in this book. The book analyzes the behavior of individual literary figures and suggests that keeping a distance from the state was not the only culturally sanctioned option for them. It also argues that the experiences of dangerous texts in the Soviet period are mostly hidden from the researcher because the primary experience of the text above or below ground comes down to one person reading silently.
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195156508
- eISBN:
- 9780199868230
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195156508.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter describes Alexander I's reign as one that manifested the culmination of the Age of Reason, of the Enlightenment in Russia, inaugurated by Peter the Great and developed for a century. It ...
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This chapter describes Alexander I's reign as one that manifested the culmination of the Age of Reason, of the Enlightenment in Russia, inaugurated by Peter the Great and developed for a century. It adds that Alexander I seemed to represent the best of the Enlightenment: twenty-three years old, handsome, and brought up on the rhetoric of his grandmother Catherine the Great and the instructions of the prominent Swiss general, statesman, and philosophe Frederic-Cesar de LaHarpe. It discusses that the best results of this reform period were achieved in the field of education and culture. It adds that if the early years of Alexander I's reign indicated cultural promise, its ending saw the emergence of Pushkin and the commencement of what is generally known as the Golden Age of Russian literature. It also tells of the emperor's most remarkable assistant/prime minister, Michael Speransky's greatness.Less
This chapter describes Alexander I's reign as one that manifested the culmination of the Age of Reason, of the Enlightenment in Russia, inaugurated by Peter the Great and developed for a century. It adds that Alexander I seemed to represent the best of the Enlightenment: twenty-three years old, handsome, and brought up on the rhetoric of his grandmother Catherine the Great and the instructions of the prominent Swiss general, statesman, and philosophe Frederic-Cesar de LaHarpe. It discusses that the best results of this reform period were achieved in the field of education and culture. It adds that if the early years of Alexander I's reign indicated cultural promise, its ending saw the emergence of Pushkin and the commencement of what is generally known as the Golden Age of Russian literature. It also tells of the emperor's most remarkable assistant/prime minister, Michael Speransky's greatness.
Marietta Chudakova
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759038
- eISBN:
- 9780804773331
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759038.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter presents a fascinating view of Babel's evolution as a writer and stylist in his interaction with the body of Russian and Soviet Russian literature. Contrary to the prevailing view of ...
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This chapter presents a fascinating view of Babel's evolution as a writer and stylist in his interaction with the body of Russian and Soviet Russian literature. Contrary to the prevailing view of Babel as a sui generis author with a limited genealogy in Russian letters and practically no following among Soviet Russian writers, it is shown that Babel, in fact, had a tremendous impact on Soviet Russian prose, which absorbed elements of his style even as it diluted its intensity and pungency to “safe” consumption levels. Paradoxically or not, Babel, too, found himself caught up in the “taming of Babel”: as the author of his 1937 story, “The Kiss,” he was coming close to resembling his own Soviet epigones.Less
This chapter presents a fascinating view of Babel's evolution as a writer and stylist in his interaction with the body of Russian and Soviet Russian literature. Contrary to the prevailing view of Babel as a sui generis author with a limited genealogy in Russian letters and practically no following among Soviet Russian writers, it is shown that Babel, in fact, had a tremendous impact on Soviet Russian prose, which absorbed elements of his style even as it diluted its intensity and pungency to “safe” consumption levels. Paradoxically or not, Babel, too, found himself caught up in the “taming of Babel”: as the author of his 1937 story, “The Kiss,” he was coming close to resembling his own Soviet epigones.
Catriona Kelly
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159643
- eISBN:
- 9780191673665
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159643.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Russian women's writing is now attracting enormous interest both in the West and in Russia itself. Written from a feminist perspective, this book combines a broad historical survey with close textual ...
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Russian women's writing is now attracting enormous interest both in the West and in Russia itself. Written from a feminist perspective, this book combines a broad historical survey with close textual analysis. Sections on women's writing in the periods 1820–80, 1881–1917, 1917–54, and 1953–92 are followed by chapters on individual writers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare literary journals and almanacs, the book shows familiar figures such as Akhmatova, Tsevtaeva, and Tolstaya in a new context and brings to light a colourful gallery of fascinating but neglected writers including Elena Gan, NadezhdaTeffi, Natalya Baranskaya, and Nina Sadur. The text is supported by quotations from the Russian, all accompanied by English translations.Less
Russian women's writing is now attracting enormous interest both in the West and in Russia itself. Written from a feminist perspective, this book combines a broad historical survey with close textual analysis. Sections on women's writing in the periods 1820–80, 1881–1917, 1917–54, and 1953–92 are followed by chapters on individual writers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare literary journals and almanacs, the book shows familiar figures such as Akhmatova, Tsevtaeva, and Tolstaya in a new context and brings to light a colourful gallery of fascinating but neglected writers including Elena Gan, NadezhdaTeffi, Natalya Baranskaya, and Nina Sadur. The text is supported by quotations from the Russian, all accompanied by English translations.
Claire Davison
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748682812
- eISBN:
- 9781474400978
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748682812.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This book focuses on the considerable but neglected body of works translated by S. S. Koteliansky from 1919–1923 in collaboration with Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Close-readings and broad ...
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This book focuses on the considerable but neglected body of works translated by S. S. Koteliansky from 1919–1923 in collaboration with Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Close-readings and broad cross-cultural contextualisations point to the influence that translating Russian authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gorky had on the writers individually, as well as to the relevance of these collaborations within the poetics and cultural dynamics of Anglophone modernism. Koteliansky’s collaborative translations with other writers, including Leonard Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, is also evoked. Read as an oeuvre, the co-translations suggest how the practical workings of an exceptional collaborative partnership impacted on Woolf and Mansfield’s creative vision and literary apprenticeship as they experimented with voice, consciousness, gendered language and masks. By also highlighting literary networks, editorial agendas, publishers’ policies and marketing strategies in the post-revolutionary and post-war years, the study contributes to our understanding of the cultural and historical dynamics of literary translation.Less
This book focuses on the considerable but neglected body of works translated by S. S. Koteliansky from 1919–1923 in collaboration with Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Close-readings and broad cross-cultural contextualisations point to the influence that translating Russian authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gorky had on the writers individually, as well as to the relevance of these collaborations within the poetics and cultural dynamics of Anglophone modernism. Koteliansky’s collaborative translations with other writers, including Leonard Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, is also evoked. Read as an oeuvre, the co-translations suggest how the practical workings of an exceptional collaborative partnership impacted on Woolf and Mansfield’s creative vision and literary apprenticeship as they experimented with voice, consciousness, gendered language and masks. By also highlighting literary networks, editorial agendas, publishers’ policies and marketing strategies in the post-revolutionary and post-war years, the study contributes to our understanding of the cultural and historical dynamics of literary translation.
Steven Earnshaw
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780719099618
- eISBN:
- 9781526141934
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099618.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In Venedikt Yerofeev’s Moscow Stations the character Venichka, a version of the author, takes an increasingly surreal train ride towards Petushki, a town at the end of a Moscow line which he believes ...
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In Venedikt Yerofeev’s Moscow Stations the character Venichka, a version of the author, takes an increasingly surreal train ride towards Petushki, a town at the end of a Moscow line which he believes to be like paradise. Unlike other drinker novels where the committed central drinker’s behaviour is regarded as outside social norms, Venichka is surrounded by like-minded Russian souls who also drink continuously. One of the central conceits of the novel explored in this chapter is thus the role of Venichka as a Russian everyman who is simultaneously alienated from the State, and paradoxically also from the people – drinking is his chosen vocation rather than a means of dulling self-medication. Venichka’s alienation is manifest in his ongoing argument with God, Russia and Fate. The chapter assesses how the novel refuses to privilege rationality, philosophy or empiricism in its determination to fully exist in a country/world which lacks any kind of coherence, and offers a comparison between this novel and Exley’s A Fan’s Notes in their treatment of the individual, drink, and the Nation State.Less
In Venedikt Yerofeev’s Moscow Stations the character Venichka, a version of the author, takes an increasingly surreal train ride towards Petushki, a town at the end of a Moscow line which he believes to be like paradise. Unlike other drinker novels where the committed central drinker’s behaviour is regarded as outside social norms, Venichka is surrounded by like-minded Russian souls who also drink continuously. One of the central conceits of the novel explored in this chapter is thus the role of Venichka as a Russian everyman who is simultaneously alienated from the State, and paradoxically also from the people – drinking is his chosen vocation rather than a means of dulling self-medication. Venichka’s alienation is manifest in his ongoing argument with God, Russia and Fate. The chapter assesses how the novel refuses to privilege rationality, philosophy or empiricism in its determination to fully exist in a country/world which lacks any kind of coherence, and offers a comparison between this novel and Exley’s A Fan’s Notes in their treatment of the individual, drink, and the Nation State.
Brain Boyd
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231158572
- eISBN:
- 9780231530293
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231158572.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter examines Vladimir Nabokov's switch from Russian fiction to the English literary tradition. It first considers Alexander Dolinin's “strong” reading of Nabokov's career; Dolinin ...
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This chapter examines Vladimir Nabokov's switch from Russian fiction to the English literary tradition. It first considers Alexander Dolinin's “strong” reading of Nabokov's career; Dolinin characterized Nabokov's early years as a period of creatively combative engagement with the Russian literary tradition and his later years, some time after his switch to English, in terms of a disavowal of that former engagement and a diminution of his own Russian achievement. The chapter cites some obvious counterevidence to the claim that Nabokov devalued his Russian work and explains why Nabokov continually drove himself to develop artistically. In particular, it describes how Nabokov passionately and persistently sought to arrange translations into English of what he thought his three best Russian novels—The Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, and The Gift. It also discusses Nabokov's sense of cultural evolution and his desire throughout his American and final European years to keep alive the memory of the Russian liberal tradition.Less
This chapter examines Vladimir Nabokov's switch from Russian fiction to the English literary tradition. It first considers Alexander Dolinin's “strong” reading of Nabokov's career; Dolinin characterized Nabokov's early years as a period of creatively combative engagement with the Russian literary tradition and his later years, some time after his switch to English, in terms of a disavowal of that former engagement and a diminution of his own Russian achievement. The chapter cites some obvious counterevidence to the claim that Nabokov devalued his Russian work and explains why Nabokov continually drove himself to develop artistically. In particular, it describes how Nabokov passionately and persistently sought to arrange translations into English of what he thought his three best Russian novels—The Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, and The Gift. It also discusses Nabokov's sense of cultural evolution and his desire throughout his American and final European years to keep alive the memory of the Russian liberal tradition.
Zsuzsa Hetényi
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759038
- eISBN:
- 9780804773331
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759038.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The narrative method of the child's eye, reflecting the dual identity of succeeding generations, is a phenomenon that seems to be the most outstanding achievement of the Jewish literature of ...
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The narrative method of the child's eye, reflecting the dual identity of succeeding generations, is a phenomenon that seems to be the most outstanding achievement of the Jewish literature of assimilation. This chapter attempts to define the substance of this innovation by focusing on the parallel motifs in the works of Isaac Babel, his Russian–Jewish literary predecessors, and his successors or followers in world literature, sometimes moving back and forth in time in order to isolate these overlapping motifs of different authors. These cross-national literary links, some of which can be followed up to this day, are a living proof that Russian–Jewish literature may be justly considered a particular tradition within world literature and one that is important in its own right.Less
The narrative method of the child's eye, reflecting the dual identity of succeeding generations, is a phenomenon that seems to be the most outstanding achievement of the Jewish literature of assimilation. This chapter attempts to define the substance of this innovation by focusing on the parallel motifs in the works of Isaac Babel, his Russian–Jewish literary predecessors, and his successors or followers in world literature, sometimes moving back and forth in time in order to isolate these overlapping motifs of different authors. These cross-national literary links, some of which can be followed up to this day, are a living proof that Russian–Jewish literature may be justly considered a particular tradition within world literature and one that is important in its own right.
Leonid Livak
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770552
- eISBN:
- 9780804775625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770552.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book proposes that the idea of the Jews in European cultures has little to do with actual Jews, but rather is derived from the conception of Jews as Christianity's paradigmatic Other, eternally ...
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This book proposes that the idea of the Jews in European cultures has little to do with actual Jews, but rather is derived from the conception of Jews as Christianity's paradigmatic Other, eternally reenacting their morally ambiguous New Testament role as the Christ-bearing and Christ-killing chosen people of God. Through new readings of canonical Russian literary texts by Gogol, Turgenev, Chekhov, Babel, and others, the author argues that these European writers—Christian, secular, and Jewish—based their representation of Jews on the Christian exegetical tradition of anti-Judaism. Indeed, the author disputes the classification of some Jewish writers as belonging to “Jewish literature,” arguing that such an approach obscures their debt to European literary traditions and their ambivalence about their Jewishness. This work, which seeks to move the study of Russian literature, and Russian-Jewish literature in particular, down a new path, will stir up controversy around Christian–Jewish cultural interaction; the representation of otherness in European arts and folklore; modern Jewish experience; and Russian literature and culture.Less
This book proposes that the idea of the Jews in European cultures has little to do with actual Jews, but rather is derived from the conception of Jews as Christianity's paradigmatic Other, eternally reenacting their morally ambiguous New Testament role as the Christ-bearing and Christ-killing chosen people of God. Through new readings of canonical Russian literary texts by Gogol, Turgenev, Chekhov, Babel, and others, the author argues that these European writers—Christian, secular, and Jewish—based their representation of Jews on the Christian exegetical tradition of anti-Judaism. Indeed, the author disputes the classification of some Jewish writers as belonging to “Jewish literature,” arguing that such an approach obscures their debt to European literary traditions and their ambivalence about their Jewishness. This work, which seeks to move the study of Russian literature, and Russian-Jewish literature in particular, down a new path, will stir up controversy around Christian–Jewish cultural interaction; the representation of otherness in European arts and folklore; modern Jewish experience; and Russian literature and culture.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770552
- eISBN:
- 9780804775625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770552.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the imagination and depiction of the Jewish persona in Russian literature. The book explores the representation of Jews in ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the imagination and depiction of the Jewish persona in Russian literature. The book explores the representation of Jews in literary fiction by placing them within the continuity of the Jewish vocabulary of difference, not only in Christian, but also in post-Christian Europe. It argues that most historical facts of European Jewish experience are not the sources of the “Jewish” image but its cultural role as the paradigmatic Other after Christianity lost its legal and social hold on European societies. The book also analyzes the relevant works of several Russian writers including Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, and Isaak Babel.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the imagination and depiction of the Jewish persona in Russian literature. The book explores the representation of Jews in literary fiction by placing them within the continuity of the Jewish vocabulary of difference, not only in Christian, but also in post-Christian Europe. It argues that most historical facts of European Jewish experience are not the sources of the “Jewish” image but its cultural role as the paradigmatic Other after Christianity lost its legal and social hold on European societies. The book also analyzes the relevant works of several Russian writers including Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, and Isaak Babel.
Claire Davison
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748682812
- eISBN:
- 9781474400978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748682812.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This introduction contextualises the collaborative translations, recalling the climate of ‘Russian Fever’ in London’s early-twentieth-century intellectual circles, and the biographical setting. It ...
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This introduction contextualises the collaborative translations, recalling the climate of ‘Russian Fever’ in London’s early-twentieth-century intellectual circles, and the biographical setting. It then situates co-translation theory within recent critical debates, looking at the skills and expertise each partner could contribute individually to the creative endeavours. A broad overview of recent critical studies of the reception of Russian literature within modernist dynamics in Great Britain is followed by a synopsis of the book’s central ideas, claiming that Mansfield and Woolf’s literary translations had a lasting, transformative impact on Woolf and Mansfield’s own literary apprenticeship in terms of their poetics and their creative, formal experimentation, and also their reviewing and critical appraisals.Less
This introduction contextualises the collaborative translations, recalling the climate of ‘Russian Fever’ in London’s early-twentieth-century intellectual circles, and the biographical setting. It then situates co-translation theory within recent critical debates, looking at the skills and expertise each partner could contribute individually to the creative endeavours. A broad overview of recent critical studies of the reception of Russian literature within modernist dynamics in Great Britain is followed by a synopsis of the book’s central ideas, claiming that Mansfield and Woolf’s literary translations had a lasting, transformative impact on Woolf and Mansfield’s own literary apprenticeship in terms of their poetics and their creative, formal experimentation, and also their reviewing and critical appraisals.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804774437
- eISBN:
- 9780804779043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804774437.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book studies Jewish literature and culture by situating authors from Isaac Babel and David Bergelson to Osip Mandelshtam, Perets Markish, Dina Rubina, and Inna Lesovaia in the same literary ...
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This book studies Jewish literature and culture by situating authors from Isaac Babel and David Bergelson to Osip Mandelshtam, Perets Markish, Dina Rubina, and Inna Lesovaia in the same literary universe in which the framework for creativity is provided by modernism and socialist realism, revolution and catastrophe, as well as traditional Jewish writings such as the Hebrew Bible. It discusses Yiddish literature and the terms “Soviet Yiddish,” “Russian-Jewish literature,” and “Jewish literature in Russian”—that is, Russian-language work with Jewish themes written by Jews. Because it addresses cultural production in Soviet Russia in general, the book considers works written by Jews without any apparent Jewish content and examines the question of what constitutes Jewish literature. It also explores the socialist realist manipulation of time, narrative, and memory, focusing mostly on prose. In particular, it offers readings of poetry by Markish, Mandelshtam, Boris Slutskii, Semen Lipkin, and Il'ia Sel'vinskii.Less
This book studies Jewish literature and culture by situating authors from Isaac Babel and David Bergelson to Osip Mandelshtam, Perets Markish, Dina Rubina, and Inna Lesovaia in the same literary universe in which the framework for creativity is provided by modernism and socialist realism, revolution and catastrophe, as well as traditional Jewish writings such as the Hebrew Bible. It discusses Yiddish literature and the terms “Soviet Yiddish,” “Russian-Jewish literature,” and “Jewish literature in Russian”—that is, Russian-language work with Jewish themes written by Jews. Because it addresses cultural production in Soviet Russia in general, the book considers works written by Jews without any apparent Jewish content and examines the question of what constitutes Jewish literature. It also explores the socialist realist manipulation of time, narrative, and memory, focusing mostly on prose. In particular, it offers readings of poetry by Markish, Mandelshtam, Boris Slutskii, Semen Lipkin, and Il'ia Sel'vinskii.
Kathleen F. Parthé
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300098518
- eISBN:
- 9780300138221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300098518.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book examines the ways that writers and their works unnerved and irritated Russia's authoritarian rulers both before and after the Revolution. The author identifies ten historically powerful ...
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This book examines the ways that writers and their works unnerved and irritated Russia's authoritarian rulers both before and after the Revolution. The author identifies ten historically powerful beliefs about literature and politics in Russia, which include a view of the artistic text as national territory and the belief that writers must avoid all contact with the state. She offers an analysis of the power of Russian literature to shape national identity despite sustained efforts to silence authors deemed subversive. No amount of repression could prevent the production, distribution, and discussion of texts outside official channels. Along with tragic stories of lost manuscripts and persecuted writers, there is ample evidence of an unbroken thread of political discourse through art. The book concludes with a consideration of the impact of two centuries of dangerous texts on post-Soviet Russia.Less
This book examines the ways that writers and their works unnerved and irritated Russia's authoritarian rulers both before and after the Revolution. The author identifies ten historically powerful beliefs about literature and politics in Russia, which include a view of the artistic text as national territory and the belief that writers must avoid all contact with the state. She offers an analysis of the power of Russian literature to shape national identity despite sustained efforts to silence authors deemed subversive. No amount of repression could prevent the production, distribution, and discussion of texts outside official channels. Along with tragic stories of lost manuscripts and persecuted writers, there is ample evidence of an unbroken thread of political discourse through art. The book concludes with a consideration of the impact of two centuries of dangerous texts on post-Soviet Russia.
Ingunn Lunde
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421560
- eISBN:
- 9781474444842
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421560.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter offers a general overview of post-Soviet literature focusing on its predominant languages and styles, ranging from the literature of Vergangenheitsbewältigung to the literature of ...
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This chapter offers a general overview of post-Soviet literature focusing on its predominant languages and styles, ranging from the literature of Vergangenheitsbewältigung to the literature of glamour. Assessing the plethora of styles and aesthetics in contemporary Russian prose fiction, it is argued that the end of the Soviet era has led to a general linguistic reorientation of post-Soviet writers, and the implications of this reorientation are discussed briefly.Less
This chapter offers a general overview of post-Soviet literature focusing on its predominant languages and styles, ranging from the literature of Vergangenheitsbewältigung to the literature of glamour. Assessing the plethora of styles and aesthetics in contemporary Russian prose fiction, it is argued that the end of the Soviet era has led to a general linguistic reorientation of post-Soviet writers, and the implications of this reorientation are discussed briefly.
Alexander Burry
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474411424
- eISBN:
- 9781474418454
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411424.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter presents an overview of the history and process of transposing classic Russian literature into film, surveying the progress recent scholars of adaptation studies have made in overcoming ...
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This chapter presents an overview of the history and process of transposing classic Russian literature into film, surveying the progress recent scholars of adaptation studies have made in overcoming fidelity criticism. Borrowing Gerard Genette’s concept of “hypertextuality,” it offers an approach to studying films of Russian literature based on cross-cultural communication, in which literary texts undergo semantic shifts as they enter different temporal, spatial, social, and historical contexts when they are transformed into film.Less
This chapter presents an overview of the history and process of transposing classic Russian literature into film, surveying the progress recent scholars of adaptation studies have made in overcoming fidelity criticism. Borrowing Gerard Genette’s concept of “hypertextuality,” it offers an approach to studying films of Russian literature based on cross-cultural communication, in which literary texts undergo semantic shifts as they enter different temporal, spatial, social, and historical contexts when they are transformed into film.
