How Russia Learned to Write
Literature and the Imperial Table of Ranks
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Wisconsin Press
Published:30th Jan '21
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
In the eighteenth century, as modern forms of literature began to emerge in Russia, most of the writers producing it were members of the nobility. But their literary pursuits competed with strictly enforced obligations to imperial state service. Unique to Russia was the Table of Ranks, introduced by Emperor Peter the Great in 1722. Noblesse oblige was not just a lofty principle; aristocrats were expected to serve in the military, civil service, or the court, and their status among peers depended on advancement in ranks.
Irina Reyfman illuminates the surprisingly diverse effects of the Table of Ranks on writers, their work, and literary culture in Russia. From Sumarokov and Derzhavin in the eighteenth century through Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and poets serving in the military in the nineteenth, state service affected the self-images of writers and the themes of their creative output. Reyfman also notes its effects on Russia's atypical course in the professionalization and social status of literary work.
Compelling, clever, and persuasive. Examining many Russian writers' self-fashioning as members of the nobility and their careers in public service, Reyfman admirably shows that the understanding of rank should inflect all our arguments and histories of the writing profession in Russia." - Luba Golburt, University of California, Berkeley
"Indispensable reading for all who study Russian literature of the Imperial period. Reyfman adds nuance and necessary reevaluation to our understanding of how literary careers and literary biography evolved in Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." - Andrew Kahn, University of Oxford
"Reyfman's prose is clear and readable throughout, and How Russia Learned to Write adds an intriguing new reading on canonical texts of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is one of those rare books you never knew you needed, but answers questions you have always had." - Slavic Review
"Can be read profitably by a range of readers, from undergraduates to specialists. . . . Reyfman's informed analysis forces us to rethink received ideas." - Slavic and East European Journal
ISBN: 9780299308346
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm
Weight: 355g
256 pages