The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

Contents

List of illustrationspage xii

Acknowledgmentsxiii

Introduction1

1Critical models, committed readers, and

three Russian Ideas11

Literary critics and their public goods14

Three Russian Ideas22

2Heroes and their plots34

Righteous persons35

Fools39

Frontiersmen43

Rogues and villains47

Society’s misfitsinthe European style53

The heroeswemight yet see57

3Traditional narratives59

Saints’ lives62

Folk tales (Baba Yaga, Koshchey the

Deathless)66

Hybrids: folk epic and Faust tale71

Miracle, magic, law75

4Western eyes on Russian realities: the

eighteenth century80

Neoclassical comedy and Gallomania84

Chulkov’s Martona: life instructs art90

Karamzin’s “Poor Liza”94

ix