A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism: The Soviet Age and Beyond

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LITERARY CRITICISM “This is a uniquely impor tant book. Unique, because ther e is no other ser ious scholarly history that encompasses the whole spectrum of modern Russian literary theory and criticism. Important, because the schools and thinkers who are studied in this collection have played a crucial role in shaping debates about literature and its relation to society all over the globe. The contributors constitute a who’s who of contemporary Slavic scholarship, and they cover every significant move from the October Revolution to the post-Soviet present, including émigré developments. No responsible student of modern literary theory can ignore this instant classic.” —Michael Holquist, Yale University “For those of us whose k nowledge of Russian lit erary theory and cr iticism is restricted to a few works by the Russian formalists and Bakhtin, this wide-ranging collection, which treats criticism as both a social institution and intellectual activity, is valuable and revealing.” —Jonathan Culler, Cornell University “This is a necessary compendium for anyone seeking to understand the history of Russian literary scholarship in its international contexts and wanting to experience theintellectualjoyof readingSovietand Russian literarytheory.Itsbrilliantlywritten contributions destroy old (and of ten self-serving) mythologies, reveal unknown facts and new perspec tives on their in terpretation, and thus make a sig nificant contribution to our understanding of the Soviet and post-Soviet era.” —Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University Pitt Series in Russian and East European Stud ies University of Pittsburgh Press www.upress.pitt.edu Cover art and design: Gary Gore T HIS edited 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, including developments in émigré literary theory and criticism. Due to literature’s special status as a defining feature of modern Russian culture, literary criticism was a major platform for the formation of public discourse in Russia, and many literary-critical events of the Soviet period were expressions of struggles over political power and cultural domination. The book examines the dynamics of Russian literary theory and criticism through the prism of their political, intellectual, and institutional impact. Early developments included Russian formalism, the Bakhtin Circle, psychoanalytic and sociological literary theory, as well as the literary criticism of Proletkult, futurism, the fellowtravelers , and the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. Throughout the 1930s literary theory and criticism endorsed official ideology, although para-Marxist trends such as semantic paleontology sought to offer a more nuanced understanding of culture. 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 surge in liberal attitudes that were later suppressed in the nationalist atmosphere 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. Although a number of scholarly subdisciplines based on individual theorists and critical movements of the era have emerged (e.g., Bakhtin studies), this edited volume is the first complete account of the development of Russian literary theory and criticism during the twentieth century to be published anywhere in Russia or the West. Valuable not only for its coverage of all the important theorists and major critical movements during this tumultuous period , this book represents a turning point in the study of Russian literary theory and criticism. AHistoryofRussian LiteraryTheory andCriticism The Soviet Age and Beyond Edited by Evgeny Dobrenko AND Galin Tihanov A History of russian literary theory and criticism Dobrenko and Tihanov Pittsburgh Evgeny Dobrenko is professor and head of the department of Russian and Slavonic studies at the University of Sheffield. He is author, editor, or coeditor of twenty books, including The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature and Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917–1953. Galin Tihanov is the George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including The Master and the Slave: Lukács, Bakhtin, and the Ideas of Their Time and Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism. ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4411-9 ISBN 10: 0-8229-4411-1 LITERARY CRITICISM “This is a uniquely impor tant book. Unique, because ther e is no other ser ious scholarly history that encompasses the...