Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

This ambitious study explores the complex cultural, political, and historical mechanisms that helped build the image of the Russian literary tradition as one of the greatest in the world. Focusing on national self-image instead of the works of individual writers and their influence, the six chapters of this volume present an overview of how different movements and individual theorists formulated the foundations for defining a literary tradition; a close examination of Czech literary historian Felix Vodicka's conception of literary tradition as an expression of its understanding among readers and writers; the relationships among literature, national history, and identity in molding the Russian literary tradition; an exploration of the spiritually inspired "redemptive mission" of Russian literature, as viewed by critics and writers; and a contextualization of literary tradition definitions within 19th-century Russian literature in particular. The sixth and final chapter attempts to identify the components of the resulting underlying narrative that established Russia's literary tradition. Rigorously written and abundantly annotated, this study also includes a list of works cited and a helpful index.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

In his 1830 "little tragedy" The Stone Guest, Pushkin, the most influential writer in Russian literary history, delivers his spin on one of global literature's most frequently invoked archetypes. In this study, Burry (Ohio State Univ.) endeavors, first, to set Pushkin's Don Juan apart from many other important iterations and, next, to trace the impact of Pushkin's play on the subsequent 200 years of Russian belles lettres. It is a monumental task. Burry not only handles it admirably, but he does so by drawing out two especially potent themes unique to Pushkin's Don Juan that remain very topical today. As Burry succinctly puts it, The Stone Guest's Don Juan "is a rebel who aspires to be a liberator of women" (p. 24). Two standout analyses show where these themes get played up perhaps most provocatively. In one, Burry demonstrates how the poet Anna Akhmatova uses "Donjuanism" to critique Stalinism, and in the other, how contemporary writer Liudmila Ulitskaya creates female Don Juans to interrogate current questions of gender and patriarchy. Along the way, Burry examines many other prominent writers and their Pushkinian Don Juans, from both Alexei and Lev Tolstoy to Chekhov, Blok, and Erofeev. A must read for students of the Russian literary tradition.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.