In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary

This volume assembles the work of leading international scholars in a comprehensive history of Russian literary theory and criticism from 1917 to the post-Soviet age. By examining the dynamics of literary criticism and theory in three arenas—political, intellectual, and institutional—the authors capture the progression and structure of Russian literary criticism and its changing function and discourse.
      The chapters follow early movements such as formalism, the Bakhtin Circle, Proletklut, futurism, the fellow-travelers, and the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. By the cultural revolution of 1928, literary criticism became a mechanism of Soviet policies, synchronous with official ideology. The chapters follow theory and criticism into the 1930s with examinations of the Union of Soviet Writers, semantic paleontology, and socialist realism under Stalin. A more “humanized” literary criticism appeared during the ravaging years of World War II, only to be supplanted by a return to the party line, Soviet heroism, and anti-Semitism in the late Stalinist period. During Khrushchev’s Thaw, there was a remarkable rise in liberal literature and criticism, that was later refuted in the nationalist movement of the “long” 1970s. The same decade saw, on the other hand, the rise to prominence of semiotics and structuralism. Postmodernism and a strong revival of academic literary studies have shared the stage since the start of the post-Soviet era.
      For the first time anywhere, this collection analyzes all of the important theorists and major critical movements during a tumultuous ideological period in Russian history, including developments in émigré literary theory and criticism.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Front Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright
  2. pp. iii-iv
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. vii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction
  2. pp. ix-xvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1. Literary Criticism during the revolution and the civil war, 1917–1921
  2. pp. 1-16
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. Literary Criticism and Cultural Policy During the New Economic Policy, 1921–1927
  2. pp. 17-42
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. Literary Criticism and the transformations of the literary field during the cultural revolution, 1928–1932
  2. pp. 43-63
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. Literary theory in the 1920s
  2. pp. 64-109
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5. Soviet literary criticism and the formulation of the aesthetics of social ist realism, 1932–1940
  2. pp. 90-108
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 6. Soviet literary theory in the 1930s
  2. pp. 109-143
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 7. Russian émigré literary criticism and theory between the world wars
  2. pp. 144-162
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 8. Literary criticism and the institution of literature in the era of war and late stalinism, 1941–1953
  2. pp. 163-183
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 9. Literary criticism during the thaw
  2. pp. 184-206
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 10. Literary criticism of the long 1970s and the fate of soviet liberalism
  2. pp. 207-229
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 11. Discoveries and advances in literary theory, 1960s–1980s
  2. pp. 230-249
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 12. Literary criticism and the end of the soviet system, 1985–1991
  2. pp. 250-268
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 13. The alter ego
  2. pp. 269-386
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 14. Post-soviet literary criticism
  2. pp. 287-305
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 15. Post-soviet literary studies
  2. pp. 306-322
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Appendix
  2. pp. 323-327
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 329-390
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contributors
  2. pp. 391-394
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 395-406
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Back Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.