Virginia Woolf and British Russophilia

Roberta Rubenstein convincingly demonstrates that England was infatuated with all things Russian between the years 1912 and 1922. These were some of the most formative years in the development of Woolf ’s writing and thinking, and consequently, Rubenstein argues that prominent Russian writers heavily influenced Woolf the writer and Woolf the critic. Given the degree to which Russian writers influenced Woolf in particular and England more generally, Rubenstein suggests that the Russian influence had a decisive impact in determining the shape of British Modernism.