Intro; Foreword; Contents; I. Moscow: Apprenticeship; II. Moscow and St. Petersburg; III. Preromantic Developments before Karamzin; IV. Preromantic Developments before Karamzin (Cont.); V. Poetry: The Theory; VI. Poetry: The Practice; VII. Prose: ""Poor Liza"", Language; VIII. Prose: Historical, Moral, and Romantic Tales; IX. Letters of a Russian Traveler; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index
Breaking Ground examines travel writing’s contribution to the development of a Russian national culture from roughly 1700 to 1850, as Russia struggled to define itself against Western Europe. Russian examples of literary travel writing began with imitative descriptions of grand tours abroad, but progressive familiarity with the West and with its literary forms gradually enabled writers to find other ways of describing the experiences of Russians en route. Blending foreign and native cultural influences, writers responded to the pressures of the age—to Catherine II, Napoleon, and Nicholas I, for example—both by turning “inward” to focus on domestic touring and by rewriting their relationship to the West. This book tracks the evolution of literary travel writing in this period of its unprecedented popularity and demonstrates how the expression of national identity, the discovery of a national culture, and conceptions of place—both Russian and Western European-were among its primary achievements. These elements also constitute travel writing’s chief legacy to prose fiction, “breaking ground” for the later masterpieces of writers such as Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. For literary scholars, historians, and other educated readers with interests in Russian culture, travel writing, comparative literature, and national identity.
The first detailed account of the works of the Royal Historiographer whose name marks a period in Russian literature. The present work is primarily devoted to a study of Karamzin's literary career, specifically to the work he produced between 1783, the date of his first published translation, and 1803, at the end of which year he completed his editorship of the influential Messenger of Europe and, in his own words, "entered the temple of history," following his appointment as Royal Historiographer. In this far-ranging work Mr. Cross gives a detailed account of Karamzin's formative years, his extensive travel, his influence on his contemporaries, his philosophy, and his literary achievements, thus providing a well-rounded portrait of a remarkable man in relation to his time and, perhaps especially important, providing also an unmatched contribution to Russian literary studies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. An appendix to the book provides a list of the works Karamzin reviewed for the Moscow Journal and a bibliography of Karamzin studies published in this century, to 1968.
From the contents: From Pantheon to Pandemonium (Richard Peace). - Karamzin's Gothic tale: The Island of Bornholm (Derek Offord). - Alessandra TOSI: At the origins of the Russian Gothic novel: Nikolai Gnedich's Don Corrado de Gerrera (1803) (Alessandra Tosi). - Does Russian Gothic verse exist? The Case of Vasilii Zhukovskii (Michael Pursglove). - The fantastic in Russian Romantic prose: Pushkin's The Queen of Spades (Claire Whitehead).
Russian literature between 1750 and the romantic age presents a confus ing picture. Various literary movements arose and existed side by side, while new trends made themselves felt. At no other time in the history of Russian literature was there a similar influx of widely disparate literary and intellectual influences from the West. The complex evolution of literature is reflected in the area of literary classification. Period terms have been used in great variety, yet without general agreement as to the extent, or even the nature of the trends described. The essays of this study are devoted to two major literary trends of the 18th and early 19th century, -sentimentalism and preromanticism. They aim to elucidate their evolu tion as well as at defining and describing the conceptual framework on which they rest. Since the 18th century did not draw a sharp line between translated and original literature, both have been included here. Literary, philosophical, and general cultural influences from the West were of consi derable importance for Russian literature. The concepts, motifs and themes which reached Russian writers in translations moulded their own original works. The 18th century witnessed the formation of an adequate literary language which culminated in Karamzin's style. The distinction of two stages in the development of sentimentalism as suggested here and the differentiation between both of them and a third literary trend, preroman ticism, is an attempt to reflect adequately the rapid change in stylistic and poetic norms.
Profiles the careers of Russian authors, scholars, and critics and discusses the history of the Russian treatment of literary genres such as drama, fiction, and essays
Consequences of Consciousness shows how great Russian authors conversed with each other through their fictions as they explored both the limits and the autonomy of subjective consciousness.
