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"One would be hard pressed to decide whether the book is more notable for what it says or for how it says it . . . Viktor Shklovsky's A Sentimental Journey is highly recommended."—Library JournalViktor Shklovsky's A Sentimental Journey, which borrows its title from Laurence Sterne, describes the travels of a bewildered intellectual through Russia, Persia, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus during the period of the Russian Revolution. Valuable as a historical document for its first-hand account of the events during the period of 1917-1922, A Sentimental Journey is also an important experimental literary work—a memoir in the form of a novel.

At times lyrical, disturbing, ironic, and erudite, A Sentimental Journey is a singular book from one of the most recognizable and influential voices of twentieth-century Russian literature. ... Read more

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A prominent scholar here writes about two kinds of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian intellectuals: those with a passion for ideology (often the most extreme form); and those who, inspired by libertarian humanism, developed sophisticated critiques of ideology.Amazon.com Review
In Toward Another Shore, British historian AileenM. Kelly, a specialist in Russian history, posits that currentattitudes toward 19th-century Russian intellectuals are the result ofdistortions on the part of both Soviet and Western historians. Thesehistorians were, in great part, influenced by cold war ideology, Kellyargues. Yet at a time when Russia is trying to build herself anew, itis important to clear away political revisionism and take a good lookat what 19th-century thinkers might have to offer the presentgeneration. In 17 essays written over a period of 20 years, Kellyexplores the diversity of political thought that developed in theRussia of the past century. What she demonstrates is that, far frombeing lockstep in their philosophies (as cold war political historianstended to portray them), Russian intellectuals were, in reality, adisparate group that ranged from the extreme left to the extremeright. Far from being 20/20, hindsight is often blinkered by theseeming inexorability of events; in Toward Another Shore,Aileen Kelly shows that the revolution of 1917 and its resultingpolitical system was by no means the only possible outcome of19th-century Russian thought--even as late as 1909 Russian reformerswere debating several different possibilities. Kelly describes andcomments on these arguments with tremendous intelligence, addingvaluable new insights to the study of Russian political thought. ... Read more

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Seeking to control human thought as well as actions, Stalin and his followers developed words and images to legitimize the gulag. This is the first book in English to examine official Soviet concentration camp literature from the early 1920s through the mid-1960s. The book probes the evolution of this literature, the totalitarian thinking that inspired it, and the scandalous role played by Russian writers who collaborated in its creation. ... Read more

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This book examines the influence of Christianity on the thought and work of the great Russian theorist Mikhael Bakhtin, paying particular attention to the motifs of God the Creator, the Fall, the Incarnation and Christian love. This is the first full-length work to approach Bakhtin from a religious perspective, and introduces the reader to a vitally important but hitherto ignored aspect of his work. In this context Ruth Coates presents readings of Bakhtin very different from those of Marxist and Structuralist critics. ... Read more

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Great for Beginners and Specialists
Even if you're not completley up to speed on the ideas of the Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin, this book offers a good introduction and overview of his work while also looking at the larger theological implications in his writings.Recommended highly for others who are trying to tie together the various threads of postmodernism in contemporary Christian theology.

Read before reviewing
I'm not sure how Mr. Kowal can review a book, much less give it three stars, without having read it. His complaint that this book is not the only book to deal with Christianity in Bakhtin could have been eliminated had he read Coates' work. At the time her book went to press "Corporeal Worlds" had not been published. In a footnote on page 177, she mentions "Corporeal Worlds" and acknowledges that, from what she has heard, Mihailovic's view of Bakhtin seems to be similar to her own. She goes on to write that she was unable to obtain a copy before submitting her manuscript to the publisher. Of course, one would have to read it in order to know this information. As for the book itself, it is a clear, well-written work that adds to the growing Bakhtin literature here in the west. Coates has explored a much neglected and important aspect of Bakhtin's work. The fact that she was unable to read the at-that-time unpublished "Corporeal Worlds" is hardly a criticism. (Just because a copyright date is one year earlier doesn't mean that the work was available at the time the more recent book had to go to press.)

an observation
I have not read Christianity in Bakhtin, but the advertising blurb that represents it as "the first full-length work to approach Bakhtin from a religious perspective" might be overstating the case.Another book, Corporeal Words: Mikhail Bakhtin's Theology of Discourse, by AlexandarMihailovic (Studies in Russian Literature and Theory, Northwestern, 1997),has already addressed some of the same ideas suggested by the title of theother book. ... Read more

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This is the first book in any language to examine the friendship and the interrelated thought of two giants of Russian culture: Fedor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), one of Russia`s greatest novelists, and Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900), Russia`s most influential philosopher. Marina Kostalevsky provides biographical details and a wide-ranging comparative analysis of their principal works from philosophical, literary, historical, and religious perspectives. ... Read more

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Early Modern Russian Letters: Texts and Contexts brings together twenty essays by Marcus C. Levitt, a leading scholar of eighteenth-century Russian literature. The essays address a spectrum of works and issues that shaped the development of modern Russian literature, from authorship and philosophy to gender and religion in Russian Enlightenment culture. The first part of the collection explores the career and works of Alexander Sumarokov, who played a formative role in literary life of his day. In the essays of the second part Levitt argues that the Enlightenment s privileging of vision played an especially important role in eighteenth-century Russian self-image, and that its occularcentrism was profoundly shaped by Orthodox religious views. Early Modern Russian Letters offers a series of original and provocative explorations of a vital but little studied period. ... Read more

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Over 50 years old and still great!
This book written decades ago is still alive ,fresh, and vibrant. One can't be a serious critic without reading it. It's funny how that 'old time Marxism/ Trotskyism' is still terribly RELEVANT.

The Struggle for Revolutionary Culture
Trotsky once wrote that of the three great tragedies in life- hunger, sex and death- revolutionary Marxism, which was the driving force behind his life and work, mainly concerned itself with the struggle against hunger. That observation contains an essential truth about the central thrust of the Marxist tradition. However, as Trotsky demonstrates here, Marxist methodology cannot and should not be reduced to an analysis of and prescription for that single struggle. Here Trotsky takes on an aspect of the struggle for mass cultural development.

In a healthy post-capitalist society mass cultural development would be greatly expanded and encouraged. If the task of socialism were merely to vastly expand economic equality, in a sense, it would be a relativity simple task for a healthy socialist society in concert with other like-minded societies to provide general economic equality with a little tweaking after vanquishing the capitalism mode of production. What Marxism aims for, and Trotsky defends here, is a prospect that with the end of class society and economic and social injustice the capacity of individual human beings to reach new heights of intellectual and creative development should flourish. That is the thought that underpins Trotsky's work here as he analyzes various trends in Russian literature in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. In short, Marxism is certainly not a method to be followed in order to write great literature but it does allow one to set that literature in its social context and interrelatedness.

You will find no Deconstructionist or other fashionable literary criticism here. Quite the contrary. Here Trotsky uses his finely tuned skill as a Marxist to great effect as he analyzes the various trends of literature as they were affected (or not affected) by the October Revolution and sniffs out what in false in some of the literary trends. Mainly, at the time of writing, the jury was still out about the prospects of many of these trends. He analyzes many of the trends that became important later in the century in world literature, like futurismconstructivism, and others- some of which have disappeared and some of which still survive.

The most important and lasting polemic which Trotsky raised here, however, was the fight against the proponents of `proletarian culture'. The argument put forth by this trend maintained that since the Soviet Union was a workers state those who wrote about working class themes or were workers themselves should, in the interest of cultural development, be given special status and encouragement (read: a monopoly on the literary front).Trotsky makes short shrift of this argument by noting that, in theory at least as its turned out, the proletarian state was only a transitional state and therefore no lasting `proletarian culture' would have time to develop. Although history did not turn out to prove Trotsky correct the polemic is still relevant to any theory of mass cultural development.


One of the results of the publication of this book is that many intellectuals, particularly Western intellectuals, based some of their sympathy for Trotsky, the man and fallen hero on his literary analysis and his ability to write. This was particularly true during the 1930's here in America where those who were anti-Stalinist but were repelled by the vacuity of the Socialist Party were drawn to him. A few, like James T. Farrell (Studs Lonigan trilogy), did this mostly honorably. Most, like Dwight MacDonald and Sidney Hooks, etc. did not and simply used that temporary sympathy as a way station on their way to anti-Communism. Such is the nature of the political struggle.

A note for the politically- inclined who read this book. Trotsky wrote this book in 1923-24 at the time of Lenin's death and later while the struggle for succession by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev was in full swing. While Trotsky did not recognize it until later (nor did others, for that matter) this period represented the close of the rising tide of the revolution. Hereafter, the people who ruled the Soviet Union, the purposes for which they ruled and the manner in which they ruled changed dramatically. In short, Thermidor in the classical French revolutionary expression was victorious. Given his political position why the hell was Trotsky writing a book on literary trends in post-revolutionary society at that time?

One of the most important books of the 20th Century
This is simply one of the most important books of the 20th Century. Trotsky wrote this book at the request of Lenin who edited it. They saw fighting against those who wanted to impose a so-called "proletarian" culture as the official culture of the Soviet Union, as a threat to a real Marxist understanding of culture. Judging culture by its explicit politics, rather than by its expression of human life, Trotsky explains, is as far from Marxism as you can get. Trotsky explains that even some of the most reactionary minded writers have create some of the most stirringly real and vibrant literature, how to road to real socialism will come by giving working people full and free access to the best and the worst of the literature and art that capitalism has produced.No one who reads this book will think that the garbage that passed for cultural theory in the Soviet Union under Stalin and his successors or under Mao and his successors has anything to do with socialism or Marxism ... Read more

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Voices of Russian Literature presents in-depth interviews with ten of the most interesting figures writing in Russian today. These figures range from established authors such as Andrei Bitov and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, who began their careers in the post-Stalinist thaw of the 1950s, to newcomers like Viktor Pelevin, hailed as one of the most original writers of the present era. This collection offers an insider's account of the fate of Russian literature over the past four decades. ... Read more

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Unusually informative and interesting
I know no book that presents a more complete and nuanced picture of Soviet literary life in the post-Stalin years.As well as being an excellent reference book -- I would not dream of writing anything about any of these 10 writers without consulting it -- it is also extremely interesting and entertaining. Soviet culture, I now realize, was far more complicated and contradictory than I had imagined. The best Soviet literary journals were real centres of cultural life (far more than any Western equivalents); they nurtured good writers even when it was politically impossible to publish them.When Petrushevskaya first sent her stories to the journal NOVY MIR in 1969, the editor decreed: "Withold publication, but don't lose track of the author".For the next 20 years the journal did just that.In Petrushevskaya's own words, "NOVY MIR fed me, gave me work, all through the most difficult and hungry times they gave me reviews and book reports to do.They couldn't publish me but they fed me and read me and gave me their opinion -- always."Through NOVY MIR Petrushevskaya was also able to make contact with other banned writers.

In a similar way, a story by Makanin made me rethink my understanding of the monolithic nature of the Stalinist legal system.In the forties, Makanin's father was arrested on a trumped-up charge.In the normal course of events he would have spent ten years in prison."But it happened that I had an uncle who was a Civil War hero, a partisan, an old, lame man with a wooden leg.He had a pistol at home that he'd been allowed to keep, and he took this pistol and went straight to the procurator and said, 'Release him, otherwise I'll shoot you.' 'How can I?''That's your business.'(...) 'Go on, release him,' my uncle said.'He's got chidren to feed, they need him.I've got nothing to lose,' he said.'I'm a Civil War hero and they won't touch me, but I'll definitely shoot you if you don't do what I say.'The father's sentence was changed, and he was released! ... Read more

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Now available for the first time in English, Oleg Lekmanov's critically acclaimed Mandelstam presents the maverick Russian poet's life and work to a wider audience and includes the most reliable details of the poet's life which were recently found and released from the KGB archives. Through his engaging narrative, Lekmanov carries the reader through Mandelstam's early life and education in pre-revolutionary Petersburg and at the Sorbonne in Paris and in Heidelberg and his return to revolutionary Russia. Bold and fearless, he was quoted saying: Only in Russia do they respect poetry. They even kill you for it. Osip Mandelstam compared a writer to a parrot, saying that once his owner tires of him, he will cover his cage with black cloth, which becomes for literature a surrogate of night. In 1938, Mandelstam was arrested and six months later became a statistic: Over 500,000 political prisoners were sent to the Gulags in 1938; between 1931 and 1940, over 300,000 prisoners died in the Gulags - one of them was the poet Osip Mandelstam. This is the tragic story of his life pre-empted by the black cloth of Stalinism. ... Read more

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The period before 1917 was a revolutionary one for Russian literature, marked by the innovations and experimentations of modernism. With the Bolshevik seizure of power, a parallel process of drastic social innovation and experimentation began. How did revolution in the arts and revolution in society and politics relate to one another? Victor Erlich, an eminent authority on modern Slavic culture, takes up this question in Modernism and Revolution, providing an appraisal of Russian literature during its most turbulent years. Probing the salient literary responses to the upheaval that changed the face of Russia, Erlich offers a new perspective on this period of artistic ferment. He begins by revisiting the highlights of early 20th-century Russian poetry - including the works of such masters as Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Pasternak - and goes on to examine the major prose writers of the first post-revolutionary decade.In an inquiry that ranges over poetry, criticism, and artistic prose, Erlich explores the work of, among others, Symbolists Bely, Blok and Ivanov, Futurists Khlebnikov and Mayakovsky, Formalists Jakobson and Shklovsky, the novelists Pilnyak and Zamyatin, the short story master Babel, and the humourist Zoshchenko. He delineates a complex and ambiguous relationship between Russian literary modernism and the emerging Soviet state. Here, following the artistic experimentation and cultural diversity begun early in the century, we witness a trend toward regimentation and conformity as the literary avant garde's "modus vivendi" with the new regime becomes increasingly precarious. As this regime recedes into history, along with the passions and prejudices it aroused, the accomplishments and failures of writers caught up in its early revolutionary fervour can at last be seen for what they were. From a perspective formed over a lifetime of study of Russian literature, Victor Erlich helps us look clearly, judiciously and deeply into this long obscured part of the literary past. ... Read more

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This is the first study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to Aestheticism. It focuses particularly on the reception by Russian poets of Shelley, Ruskin, Pater, Frazer and Wilde, which gave new impetus to the Russian imagination at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Framing this account is a pioneering exploration of the intellectual background to these influences, and a discussion of Russian conceptions of national identity, literary influence and the origins of comparative literary history. ... Read more