Waubonsee Community College

A history of Russian literature, Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Irina Reyfman, Stephanie Sandler

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 771-786) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

A history of Russian literature

bibliography

1007064225

Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Irina Reyfman, Stephanie Sandler

Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. This volume provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife with the creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life

Part I. The Medieval Period; Introduction: Defining the medieval; 1. Institutions and contexts: Writing and authorship,1100-1400; A new language for a new people: Old Church Slavonic; Monastic writing: Translation, open boundaries, and selectivityThe limits of the literary system: Rhetoric, compilation, and genre; The meaning of readership; Scribal culture and the author function; Literary identity: Collective writing and singularity; Case study: The Voyage of Afanasy Nikitin: Self and other; 2. Holy Rus:́ Landmarks in medieval literature; Founding stories: The Primary Chronicle; Case study: The bylina and Russia's magical kingdom; The sermon: Ilarion and the chosen people of Kiev; The prayer: Daniil Zatochnik; Hagiography as life-writing; Saints alive; Hagiographic collections; Founders and Holy Fathers: The example of St. FeodosyMiracle workers, the Virgin, and holy fools case study: The holy fool in the modern tradition; Ilarion redux: The fifteenth-century elaboration of hagiography; Keyword: Word-weaving; 3. Local narratives; Unhappy families: The trauma of invasion; The Lay of Igor's Campaign and the princely image; Case study: National identity, medievalism, and the discovery of the Lay of Igor's Campaign; Narratives of invasion; Catastrophic narratives: Defending Holy Russia; From Grand Prince to Tsar, 1200-1565: Elevation through charisma; Vladimir Monomakh; Alexander Nevsky; Dmitry DonskoiIvan the Terrible: Tsardom and the absolutist "I"Center and periphery and the localism of the Tale of Petr and Fevronia; Conclusion; Part II: The Seventeenth Century; Introduction: The problem of transition and a new approach; 1. Paradise lost: National narratives; Narratives from the Time of Troubles to the Schism (1613-82); Visions of salvation; Case study: Dukhovnye stikhi (poetic songs or spiritual rhymes); Literature of the Schism (Raskol); Case study: The Life of Archpriest Avvakum2. Cultural interface: Printing, Humanist learning, and Orthodox resistance in the second half of the seventeenth century; 3. Court theater; Keyword: Baroque; 4. Poets; New expressions and techniques; Paradise regained: Simeon Polotsky's poetic garden; Friendship; Mortality; 5. Prose; Popular fiction for a disrupted age: Social satire or literary fantasy?; Petrine novellas and fantasy fiction; Conclusion; Part III: The Eighteenth Century; Introduction: The innovation of the eighteenth century; 1. Defining classicism: The canons of taste; Keyword: Russian classicismPart I. The medieval period; Institutions and contexts: writing and authorship, 1100-1400 -- Holy Russia: landmarks in medieval literature -- Local narratives -- Part II. The seventeenth century; Paradise lost: national narratives -- Cultural interface: printing, humanist learning and orthodox resistance in the second half of the seventeenth century -- Court theater --Poets -- Prose -- Part III. The eighteenth century; Defining classicism: the canons of taste -- Institutions of writing and authorship -- National narratives -- Poetics and subjectivities between classicism and romanticism -- Prose fiction -- Part IV. The Nineteenth century; Institutions -- The literary field: from amateur societies to professional institutions and literary alliances -- Subjectivities -- Forms of prose -- Literary identity and social structure of the imperial period -- Types: heroes and anti-heroes -- Heroines and emancipation -- Narratives of nation-building -- Part V. the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; Institutions -- The poetics of subjectivity -- The poetics of language -- Prose and drama: negotiations with history -- Catastrophic narratives -- Intelligentsia narratives