In the twentieth century, at least from the late 1920s to the post-war period with its succession of thaws and freezes, Russian literature, prolific though it was, would seem to have lain under a curse, from which only a few outstanding individuals contrived a heroic escape, and often enough by a reverse trajectory, through achieving recognition, though not imitation, in the West. This book does not radically challenge this thesis, though it does demonstrate that the soil in which these outstanding writers grew continued to be fertilized by the on-going Russian literary tradition, a tradition which is now in the 1990s showing signs of a new flowering, enriched perhaps by a period of enforced dormancy.
Contributors to this book were asked to write on their particular subjects with an eye to a list of writers whose claim to the status of "classics" is widely agreed, but with the freedom to vary names in the list in deference to the demands of their topic. They were also advised that the essays were not to be conceived as extended encyclopedia articles but would, we hoped, offer new, even idiosyncratic, insights into the subject, informed, where relevant, by recent political and cultural developments. The extent to which we have succeeded is for others to judge. Of course, the strategy, the topics and the list (the very idea of which echoes the unfashionable idea of a literary canon) are all open to debate. But this is a risk which we have chosen to take. We hope that the resulting essays will be of interest to undergraduate, graduate and general readers wishing to discover the common ground between the Russian and the Western novel as well as the characteristic features which Russia has brought into the tradition. They will have to look elsewhere for encyclopedic coverage and for strict consistency of approach. The volume opens with essays by Robert Maguire and Hugh McLean on the twin themes of the city and the countryside, thereby setting out the unique landscape of the Russian novel. The second
6 See Caryl Emerson's essay in this book and Donald Fanger, "On the Russianness of the Russian nineteenth-century novel," in Theofanis George Stavrou (éd.), Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 40-56.
section addresses specific cultural themes with which the Russian novel is widely associated: the often baleful influence of politics (W. Gareth Jones), the tradition of satire which was in many respects a response to it (Lesley Milne), the religious tradition of Russian Orthodoxy (Jostein Bortnes), the relationship of the Russian novel's famed psychological depths to the social setting (Andrew Wachtel), and the philosophical dimension established by the three nineteenth-century giants (Gary Saul Morson). In the third section, Susanne Fusso explores the contribution of the Romantic tradition to the development of the Russian novel while Victor Terras seeks to define the sources and nature of Russian Realism. Robert Russell examines the emergence in the early part of the twentieth century of the Modernist tradition. Finally, in part four, Robert Belknap discusses the peculiar features which characterize the Russian plot and Barbara Heldt asks about the effects on women's writing of a novelistic tradition which was the exclusive preserve of powerful male writers. The last essay, by Caryl Emerson, both gives an overview and critique of Russian theories of the novel and, by implication, furnishes a variety of possible solutions to the problems raised in this introduction and in the essays which follow.
Malcolm V. Jones Robin Feuer Miller
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors would like to express their appreciation to all the contributors, not least for their patience and cooperation in the face of an editorial policy which continued to evolve in matters of detail as the essays came in, and also to Drs. Kate Brett and Linda Bree at the Cambridge University Press for their unflagging support as the agreed deadline repeatedly gave way to external pressures. Finally the editors wish to express their gratitude to Melanie Cumpston, formerly of the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham, for her help in preparing the typescript for submission to the Press, and to Hazel Brooks of Cambridge University Press for her unfailingly sympathetic and efficient copy-editing.
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION
The Library of Congress system of transliteration from Cyrillic has been used. This includes proper names, though hard and soft signs (which are included in the notes) have been omitted in names in the text of the book. The only exceptions to this rule are names which have become so familiar in English in another form that they would be unrecognizable if this policy were strictly adhered to (e.g. Tchaikovsky, Herzen) and the names of tsars (Alexander I). Like any other policy attempting a compromise between user-friendliness and faithfulness to a particular system, this inevitably leads to some inconsistencies (for example Herzen appears also as Gertsen where works by him in Russian are referred to in the notes) but the editors thought that this would not mislead anyone who is able to read Russian and would not interest anyone who is not.
All translations of quoted extracts are by the appropriate chapter author unless otherwise specified.
CHRONOLOGY
1703 Peter the Great founds St. Petersburg
1709 Victory over Sweden at Poltava
1725-27 Reign of Catherine I
1725 Death of Peter the Great
1727-30 Reign of Peter II
1730-40 Reign of Anna
1740-41 Reign of Ivan VI
1741-61 Reign of Elizabeth
1755 Foundation of the University of Moscow
1761-62 Reign of Peter III
1762-96 Reign of Catherine II
1763 F. A. Emin's novels Miramond and Thermistocles
1766 F. A. Emin's epistolary novel Letters of Ernest and Doravra
1770 M. D. Chulkov's The Comely Cook
Death of F.A. Emin (173 5 .'-70)
1773~75 The Pugachev Revolt (Cossack and peasant uprising led by Emelian Pugachev)
1790 A. N. Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
1792 Death of M. D. Chulkov (1743?-92)
N. M. Karamzin's "Poor Liza"
1796-1801 Reign of Paul I
1801-25 Reign of Alexander I
i8o2 Death of A. N. Radishchev (1749-1802)
1807 Treaty of Tilsit (with Napoleon)
1812 Napoleon invades Russia and enters Moscow
1814 Alexander I enters Paris with his troops after defeat of
Napoleon V. T. Narezhnyi's A Russian Gil Blas
1818-26 N. M. Karamzin's History of the Russian State (12 vols.)
1822 A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Prisoner of the Caucasus"
1823-31 A. S. Pushkin's Evgenyi Onegin; published in full, 1833
1824 A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Gypsies" 1825-55 Reign of Nicholas I
1825 Death of V. T. Narezhnyi (1780-1825) Decembrist Revolt (led by Guards officers seeking to establish a constitution)
1826 Death of N.M. Karamzin (1766-1826)
1829 F. V. Bulgarin's Ivan Vyzhigin
1830 A. S. Pushkin's Tales ofBelkin 1832-34 M. lu. Lermontov's Vadim
1832 N. V. Gogol's "A Bewitched Place"
1833 A. S. Pushkin's The Queen of Spades
A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman"
1834-36 A. S. Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter
1834 V. G. Belinskii's ground-breaking critical articles Literary Reveries, arguing that Russia has no national literary tradition
1835 N. V. Gogol's Taras Bulba, "Nevskii Prospekt" and "Notes of a Madman"
1836 P. la. Chaadaev's First Philosophical Letter arguing that Russia has made no contribution to universal history N. V. Gogol's "The Nose"
1837 Death of A. S. Pushkin (1799-1837) 1840-41 M. lu. Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time