Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy

1996 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 379
Author(s):  
Judith Deutsch Kornblatt ◽  
Susan Layton
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Caucasus

Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 502
Author(s):  
Katya Hokanson ◽  
Susan Layton
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Caucasus

ORIENTALISM REVERSED: RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE TIMES OF EMPIRES

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER ETKIND
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Feminist Movements

Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, paperback version 2005; first edition 1994)Harsha Ram, The Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003)In the last decades of the Russian Empire, Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire made for favorite reading among the intelligentsia. Today imperial themes have become increasingly important in American academia; historians and literary scholars who study Russia are no exception. The two studies under review explore the spirit and the letter of the Russian Empire in the moment of boom and glory preceding its collapse. Published in 1994, Susan Layton's Russian Literature and Empire was the pioneering study of the subject. Published in 2003, Harsha Ram's The Imperial Sublime is so different from Layton's book that the differences, rooted in the American rather than the Russian imperial experience, deserve reflection in their own right. While Layton looked at the world through the emancipatory optic of postcolonialist and feminist movements, Ram manifests a different kind of sensibility, one which is alert to the scale and beauty of the victorious power. In a sad but understandable way, Susan Layton's ethical concerns give way to Harsha Ram's aesthetic ones.

scholarly journals Rosyjskie. Europejskie. Oświecone. Rozumne. O obecności Rosji w Azji Środkowej (i nie tylko)

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Polak
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Camp System ◽  
Labour Camp

The author of the paper, using tools developed by postcolonial researchers, discusses the works of twentieth-century Russian writers. The setting of these texts is in the territory of Central Asia, Siberia or the Caucasus, constituting one of the factors defining them as the so-called Eastern text of Russian literature. Although most of the writers come from the other parts of Russia and – in most cases – are of Slavic descent, they know these regions quite well. These writers, however, are little interested in the problems of indigenous peoples, as long as they are not related to nationwide issues such as industrialization, collectivization or the labour camp system. The issues of destruction and loss of cultural identity, subordination, enslavement and exploitation of the local population are often omitted. The main characters in the works of Russian writers are invariably Russians, and their reference point is the Russian (Soviet) state.

Literary identity and social structure of the imperial period

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kahn ◽  
Mark Lipovetsky ◽  
Irina Reyfman ◽  
Stephanie Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Literary Identity ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Village

The chapter explores how works of literature in the nineteenth century increasingly mapped the complex social structure of imperial Russia. It explains why social class and group identity features so prominently in the representation of characters in nineteenth-century Russian literature. The chapter demonstrates that different types of space, such as the capitals (St. Petersburg and Moscow), the village, or the estate, have specific cultural associations in literature. It discusses the phenomenon of the Petersburg mythology and the genre of Petersburg fiction, examines the provincial spaces as presented by Gogol and Chekhov, and colonial spaces such as the Caucasus as portrayed by Tolstoy.

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