The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

Caryl Emerson

The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

Russian literature arrived late on the European scene. Within several generations, its great novelists had shocked – and then conquered – the world. In this introduction to the rich and vibrant Russian tradition, Caryl Emerson weaves a narrative of recurring themes and fascinations across several centuries. Beginning with traditional Russian narratives (saints’ lives, folk tales, epic and rogue narratives), the book moves through literary history chronologically and thematically, juxtaposing literary texts from each major period. Detailed attention is given to canonical writers including Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bulgakov, and Solzhenitsyn, as well as to some current bestsellers from the post-communist period. Fully accessible to students and readers with no knowledge of Russian, the volume includes a glossary and pronunciation guide of key Russian terms and a list of useful secondary works. The book will be of great interest to students of Russian as well as of comparative literature.

Caryl Emerson is A. Watson Armour III Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University.

For Nicholas, wonderworker

Contents

List of illustrationspage xii

Acknowledgmentsxiii

Introduction1

1Critical models, committed readers, and

three Russian Ideas11

Literary critics and their public goods14

Three Russian Ideas22

2Heroes and their plots34

Righteous persons35

Fools39

Frontiersmen43

Rogues and villains47

Society’s misfitsinthe European style53

The heroeswemight yet see57

3Traditional narratives59

Saints’ lives62

Folk tales (Baba Yaga, Koshchey the

Deathless)66

Hybrids: folk epic and Faust tale71

Miracle, magic, law75

4Western eyes on Russian realities: the

eighteenth century80

Neoclassical comedy and Gallomania84

Chulkov’s Martona: life instructs art90

Karamzin’s “Poor Liza”94

ix

xContents

5The astonishing nineteenth century:

Romanticisms99

Pushkin and honor101

Duels108

Gogol and embarrassment114

Pretendership118

6Realisms: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov125

Biographies of events, and biographies that

are quests for the Word129

Time-spaces (Dostoevsky and Tolstoy)134

Dostoevsky and books146

Tolstoy and doing without words148

Poets and novelists (Dostoevsky and

Nekrasov)153

Anton Chekhov: lesser expectations, smaller

forms156

7Symbolist and Modernist world-building:

three cities, three novels, and the Devil166

The fin de sie`cle: Solovyov, Nietzsche,

Einstein, Pavlov’s dogs, political terrorism168

Modernist time-spaces and their modes of

disruption171

City myths: Petersburg, Moscow, OneState179

8The Stalin years: socialist realism,

anti-fascist fairy tales, wilderness191

What was socialist realism?198

Cement and construction (Fyodor

Gladkov)203

The Dragon and destruction (Evgeny

Shvarts)207

Andrei Platonov and suspension211

The “righttothe lyric”inanAgeofIron217

Contentsxi

9 Coming to terms and seeking new terms: from the first Thaw (1956) to the end of

the millennium220

The intelligentsia and the camps

(Solzhenitsyn)224

The Underground Woman (Petrushevskaya)230

Three ways for writers to treat matter

(Sorokin, Pelevin, Akunin)238

Notes250

Glossary269

Guide to further reading282

Index285

Illustrations

Frontispiece Map of Imperial Russia Sculpture of Aleksandr Pushkin in St. Petersburg

(photobyMichael Julius)page98

xii

Acknowledgments