| Self and Story in Russian History: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965 Contributor(s): Engelstein, Laura (Editor), Sandler, Stephanie (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0801486688 ISBN-13: 9780801486685 Publisher: Cornell University Press OUR PRICE: $43.51 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2000 Annotation: Russians have often been characterized as people with souls rather than selves. Self and Story in Russian History challenges the portrayal of the Russian character as selfless, self-effacing, or self-torturing by exploring the texts through which Russians have defined themselves as private persons and shaped their relation to the cultural community. The stories of self under consideration here reflect the perspectives of men and women from the last two hundred years, ranging from westernized nobles to simple peasants, from such famous people as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Akhmatova, and Nicholas II to lowly religious sectarians. Fifteen distinguished historians and literary scholars situate the narratives of self in their historical context and show how, since the eighteenth century, Russians have used expressive genres -- including diaries, novels, medical case studies, films, letters, and theater -- to make political and moral statements. The first book to examine the narration of self as idea and ideal in Russia, this vital work contemplates the shifting historical manifestations of identity, the strategies of self-creation, and the diversity of narrative forms. Its authors establish that there is a history of the individual in Russian culture roughly analogous to the one associated with the West. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Russia & The Former Soviet Union - Literary Criticism | Russian & Former Soviet Union |
| Dewey: 947.07 |
| LCCN: 00008839 |
| Physical Information: 0.93" H x 5.96" W x 8.97" (1.16 lbs) 384 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Russia |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Russians have often been characterized as people with souls rather than selves. Self and Story in Russian History challenges the portrayal of the Russian character as selfless, self-effacing, or self-torturing by exploring the texts through which Russians have defined themselves as private persons and shaped their relation to the cultural community. The stories of self under consideration here reflect the perspectives of men and women from the last two hundred years, ranging from westernized nobles to simple peasants, from such famous people as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Akhmatova, and Nicholas II to lowly religious sectarians. Fifteen distinguished historians and literary scholars situate the narratives of self in their historical context and show how, since the eighteenth century, Russians have used expressive genres--including diaries, novels, medical case studies, films, letters, and theater--to make political and moral statements. The first book to examine the narration of self as idea and ideal in Russia, this vital work contemplates the shifting historical manifestations of identity, the strategies of self-creation, and the diversity of narrative forms. Its authors establish that there is a history of the individual in Russian culture roughly analogous to the one associated with the West. |
Contributor Bio(s): Sandler, Stephanie: - Stephanie Sandler is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. She is the author of Commemorating Pushkin and editor of Rereading Russian Poetry.Engelstein, Laura: - Laura Engelstein is Henry S. McNeil Professor of Russian History at Yale University. She is the author of Castration and the Heavenly Kingdom: A Russian Folktale, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siécle Russia, both from Cornell, and Moscow, 1905: Working-Class Organization and Political Conflict. She is coeditor of Self and Story in Russian History, also from Cornell. |
