| Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy Revised Edition Contributor(s): Layton, Susan (Author) |
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ISBN: 0521020018 ISBN-13: 9780521020015 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $33.24 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2005 Annotation: This is the first book to provide a synthesizing study of Russian writing about the Caucasus during the nineteenth-century age of empire-building. From Pushkin's ambivalent portrayal of an alpine Circassia to Tolstoy's condemnation of tsarist aggression against Muslim tribes in Hadji Murat, the literary analysis is firmly set in its historical context, and the responses of the Russian readership to receive extensive attention. As well as exploring literature as such, Susan Layton introduces material from travelogues, oriental studies, ethnography, memoirs, and the utterances of tsarist officials and military commanders. While showing how literature often underwrote imperialism, the book carefully explores the tensions between the Russian state's ideology of a European mission to civilize the Muslim mountain peoples, and romantic perceptions of those tribes as noble primitives whose extermination was no cause for celebration. By dealing with imperialism in Georgia as well, the study shows how the varied treatment of the Caucasus in literature helped Russians construct a satisfying identity for themselves as a semi-European, semi-Asian people. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Russian & Former Soviet Union - Literary Criticism | European - General |
| Dewey: 891.709 |
| LCCN: 2005284538 |
| Series: Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature |
| Physical Information: 0.83" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (1.04 lbs) 372 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Russia |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This is the first synthesizing study of Russian writing about the Caucasus during the nineteenth-century age of empire-building. It covers major writers including Pushkin, Tolstoy and Lermontov, but also introduces material from travelogues, oriental studies, ethnography, memoirs, and the utterances of tsarist officials and military commanders. Setting these writings and the responses of the Russian readership in historical and cultural context, Susan Layton examines ways that literature underwrote imperialism. But her study also reveals the tensions between the Russian state's ideology of a European mission to civilize the Caucasian Muslim mountaineers, and romantic perceptions of those peoples as noble primitives whose extermination was no cause for celebration. |