This study of the effect of literature on readers, both as individuals and as members of social groups, focuses on Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin, as a model for investigating the aesthetic and social functions of literature. The individual reader's response to the literary text is demonstrated in Part One through a broad range of memoirs, diaries, and correspondences in which Russian readers recorded their reactions to Pushkin. Among the reactions are testimonies that Pushkin's works helped readers form their personalities, provided cathartic relief in times of stress, and aided them in releasing their suppressed emotions. In his analysis, the author draws on various psychological approaches, from studies of perception through developmental psychology to psychoanalysis. Part Two exposes the extent to which individuals' aesthetic responses are conditioned by their social environment. Against the backdrop of Russian social history in the early nineteenth century, the author describes the dissemination of new aesthetic norms, notably the relations of the Russian literary elite to "lowbrow" and "middlebrow" groups. In this context, he analyzes a number of Pushkin imitations (with Pushkin's responses to them) and links Nikolai Gogol's development as a writer to the social groups surrounding Pushkin. Among the other topics discussed are the popularization of Pushkin on the stage and his inclusion in school textbooks and anthologies. The aura surrounding the personality of an author is the subject of Part Three, in which the author shows how Pushkin's death in a duel with a foreigner contributed to his emergence as a symbol of the Russian nation, and how deep-seated anxiety about national identity gave rise to the Pushkin myth and to the canonization of the poet as martyr. The author also describes how the combined effect of the widespread reading of Pushkin's work and his legend as martyr allowed him to remain Russia's main mythic figure despite the Soviet Union's attempts to supplant him with Lenin. Throughout the book, theoretical arguments are buttressed by close readings of Pushkin's works, especially The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Eugene Onegin, Poltava, Egyptian Nights, and several lyric poems.
In the final years of his life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant �The Lady with the Little Dog� and �About Love� examine the nature of love outside of marriage � its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as �Peasants�, �The House with the Mezzanine� and �My Life� Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship. With the works collected here, Chekhov moved away from the realism of his earlier tales � developing a broader range of characters and subject matter, while forging the spare minimalist style that would inspire such modern short-story writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.
This study of the effect of literature on readers, both as individuals and as members of social groups, focuses on Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin, as a model for investigating the aesthetic and social functions of literature. The individual reader's response to the literary text is demonstrated in Part One through a broad range of memoirs, diaries, and correspondences in which Russian readers recorded their reactions to Pushkin. Among the reactions are testimonies that Pushkin's works helped readers form their personalities, provided cathartic relief in times of stress, and aided them in releasing their suppressed emotions. In his analysis, the author draws on various psychological approaches, from studies of perception through developmental psychology to psychoanalysis. Part Two exposes the extent to which individuals' aesthetic responses are conditioned by their social environment. Against the backdrop of Russian social history in the early nineteenth century, the author describes the dissemination of new aesthetic norms, notably the relations of the Russian literary elite to "lowbrow" and "middlebrow" groups. In this context, he analyzes a number of Pushkin imitations (with Pushkin's responses to them) and links Nikolai Gogol's development as a writer to the social groups surrounding Pushkin. Among the other topics discussed are the popularization of Pushkin on the stage and his inclusion in school textbooks and anthologies. The aura surrounding the personality of an author is the subject of Part Three, in which the author shows how Pushkin's death in a duel with a foreigner contributed to his emergence as a symbol of the Russian nation, and how deep-seated anxiety about national identity gave rise to the Pushkin myth and to the canonization of the poet as martyr. The author also describes how the combined effect of the widespread reading of Pushkin's work and his legend as martyr allowed him to remain Russia's main mythic figure despite the Soviet Union's attempts to supplant him with Lenin. Throughout the book, theoretical arguments are buttressed by close readings of Pushkin's works, especially The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Eugene Onegin, Poltava, Egyptian Nights, and several lyric poems.
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is best known for his great achievments in poetry, but the fixtion he wrote in the last decade of his life was to have a tremendous impact on the subsequent development of Russian prose, influencing such later writers as Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. This is a new translation of all his prose fiction, from his famous story "The Queen of Spades" down to unfinished stories and fragments that appear in English for the first time. Pushkin's non-fictional A History of Pugachev, also translated into English for the first time, is included because it furnished the historical background of his novel The Captain's Daughter. The translator has taken care to achieve a balance between faithfulness to the original and readability in English, and several Russian editions have been collated to establish an accurate text. The translations are annotated to place each work in its historical context, and to eluvidate passages not easily understandable to today's reader. Appendixes present a chapter that Pushkin deleted from The Captain's Daughter; fictional fragments; Pushkin's outlines of projected works; and the apocryphal novella The Lonely Cottage on Vasilev Island.
The Urals are best known as the boundary between Europe and Asia. A History of the Urals demonstrates the region's importance in its own right, as a crucible of Russia's defence industry in particular. In the first English-language book to explore the subject fully, Paul Dukes examines the region's contribution to the power of the state in tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet times, offering a refreshing antidote to Moscow-centric interpretations of Russian history. The book contextualises more recent periods with chapters on the earlier years of the Urals and covers the key environmental as well as economic, political and cultural themes. The book contains illustrations and maps, plus lists of books and websites, as aids to further research and understanding of the subject. A History of the Urals is an important book that provides new and valuable insights for all students of Russian history.
A new and an essential reference work for any international human rights law academic, student or practitioner, A Commentary on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights spans all substantive rights of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), approached from the perspective of the ICCPR as an integrated, coherent scheme of rights protection. In detailed coverage of the Human Rights Committee's output when monitoring ICCPR compliance, Paul M. Taylor offers extraordinary access to forty years of its Concluding Observations, Views and General Comments organised thematically. This Commentary is a solid and practical introduction to any and all of the civil and political rights in the ICCPR, and a rare resource explaining the requirements for domestic implementation of ICCPR standards. An indispensable research tool for any serious enquirer into the subject, the Commentary speaks to the accomplishments of the ICCPR in striving for universal human rights standards.
The Historical Dictionary of Romanticism in Literature provides a large overview of the Romantic Movement that seemed at the time to have swept across Europe from Russia to Germany and France, to Britain, and across the Atlantic to the United States. The Romantics saw themselves as inaugurating a new era. They frequently referred to themselves or their contemporaries as Romantics and their art as Romantic. From the early stirrings in Germany, to the last decade of the eighteenth century in England with the political radicals and the Lake Poets, to the Transcendental Club in Massachusetts, the leaders of the age acknowledged their new Romantic attitudes. This volume takes a close and comprehensive look at romanticism in literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on the writers and the poems, novels, short stories and essays, plays, and other works they produced; the leading trends, techniques, journals, and literary circles and the spirit of the times are also covered. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more romanticism in literature.
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