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Subject Area: Slavic Studies
Scott, Mark2005 0-7734-6044-6 188 pages
This is a collection of short stories by one of the best-loved authors in the USSR, Konstantin Paustovsky, who remains popular in Russia even after the collapse of Soviet communism. The collection includes not only some of his best-known works, but also many minor stories that have not been previously translated into English. Many of these should be of interest not only to Russian-language specialists, but also to the general reading public. Russian literary critics have long considered Paustovsky a master of the Russian language. The introduction to this collection analyzes the stylistic, thematic, and historical aspects of his work.
Hobson, Mary
2005 0-7734-6146-9 648 pages
Woe from Wit is unique in the history of Russian literature. Pushkin knew it. “Half the lines will become proverbs,” he said. And he was right. Its distillations of common experience, witty, perceptive, profound, have been absorbed into Russia’s national consciousness. They are still quoted by those who may no longer remember their source. It seems extraordinary, therefore, that such a work should not be more widely known.
This work seeks to account for the disparity between Griboedov’s Woe from Wit and his other works, by examining his plays and poems, letters and travel notes, the memoirs of his contemporaries, his literary sources and social milieu. The early works in which Griboedov exercised his craft, his single work of art and the few later works are related to three distinct periods in his life.
Positive and negative influences are discussed. The former include Griboedov’s association with Shakhovskoi, his wide knowledge of Russian, Classical and European literature, his admiration for the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the salutary shock of a duel; the latter, Griboedov’s ability to write a passion out of his system and his reaction to the Decembrist uprising.
A comparison with earlier Russian verse comedies shows Woe from Wit to be rooted in neo-classicism. The final test of the play is compared with the earliest known version and the effect of numerous alterations assessed. A synthesis of Griboedov’s own character and that of Aleksandr Odoevskii is seen as the source of Chatskii’s disruptive naturalness; this is discussed in relation to the neo-classical tradition in Russia, of which Woe from Wit was the fatal drowning achievement.
In translating not only Woe from Wit but the numerous passages quoted from other Russian works, and including translations of European and Classical material quoted, this work both sets this important play in its cultural and historical context and makes it accessible to Anglophone readers.
Herbenick, Raymond M.
1997 0-7734-8542-2 256 pages
This study first examines ethnographical studies of Carpatho-Rusyns here and abroad with respect to religious and folk art familiar to Warhol; then examines the biographies of Warhol prepared by his close friends and co-workers in regard to his ethnic beliefs, customs, and practices in relation to his art; next it examines the autobiographical and diary evidence by Warhol himself on his ethnic identity concealments and disclosures; finally, it examines nearly four decades of his art.
Kressel, Gideon M.
2010 0-7734-3738-X 360 pages
This study in economic anthropology focuses on micro-changes in economic and social orders in Eastern Europe, mainly in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, of the 1990s.
Ericson, Edward E. Jr.
1991 0-7734-9766-8 216 pages
This study takes as its premise that the novel, which is fascinating for both what it reveals and what it conceals, carries within itself a coherence of meaning. It is widely acknowledged that religious categories of understanding are necessary for a proper interpretation of the novel, but it is common to conclude that Bulgakov's outlook is heterodox. This study places him within the theological tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. The novel draws upon the long line of apocalyptic visionary writing. This interpretation allows the reader to make sense of the abundant symbolic correspondences in the novel, including the fact that they are skewed, inexact, and often overlapping. To see the novel as both completed and coherent depends on the cumulative evidence amassed through analysis of the novel's many significant details.
Shirinian, Lorne
1990 0-88946-392-1 320 pages
Looks at a group of texts that have never been treated as a body of literature before and offers the most far-reaching study to date of the effects of the Armenian Diaspora on Armenian literature. Goes through the pertinent moments in Armenian history to prepare an understanding of perhaps the most important fact of Armenian life, the genocide of 1915 which gave rise to the Armenian Diaspora. Employs a new theoretical approach from Europe developed by Jürgen Link called collective symbols.
Leighton, Lauren G.
2005 0-7734-6285-6 572 pages
It seems appropriate in this centennial year of the death of Russia’s premiere short story writer and playwright to honor him with a comprehensive bibliography. A Bibliography of Anton Chekhov in English: Studies, Translations, Reviews and Notes is offered in three appropriate parts.
Part One, Studies, comprises sections for book-length bio-literary studies and bio-literary articles; introductions; comparative studies; Russian and foreign memoirs; popular studies; general and individual studies of Chekhov's plays and short stories; studies of his non-fiction, letters, notes, and diaries; and special categories: film, language and stylistics, documents and documentation, translation studies, dissertations, bibliography, and collections.
Part Two, Translations, is divided into general collections, drama collections, individual dramas, story collections, individual stories; non-fiction, letters, notes, and diaries; and film.
Part Three, Critical Reviews, provides a comprehensive selection of the most significant reviews in major English-language newspapers and journals through the year 1993.
It is not possible to provide a comprehensive selection of an estimated 350,000 reviews of Chekhov plays, 1994-2003, but an attempt has been made to provide a representative sampling of reviews in major newspapers and current periodicals. Citations throughout this Bibliography are full and unabbreviated, the intent being to provide access to each work in every appropriate category without complicating the search process with confusing cross-listings. Entries for collections are accompanied by listings of contents in the order given in tables of contents or alphabetically. Entries for collections provide a base for subsequent listings of individual major works for addition of subsequent editions, reprints, and re-publications. Translations of plays are categorized by their most commonly known English titles and cited within categories by the English title given for a particular translation. English titles of stories have not been rationalized in this way because the large number of Chekhov's stories would require division of the section on individual stories into virtually hundreds of sub-sections. Instead, stories are listed in alphabetical order by the various English titles given for a particular translation.
Rogachevskii, Andrei
2003 0-7734-6847-1 288 pages
Eduard Liminov (b. 1943), one of the most controversial writers of his generation, was brought to international fame by his allegedly autobiographical cycle of novels and short stories, with their obscene language, shocking eroticism and provocative political statements. This is the first comprehensive and unbiased analysis of Limonov’s poetry, fiction, and journalism in any language. It distinguishes between Limonov the author and Limonov the character in order to pinpoint Limonov’s true beliefs, as opposed to his public statements, which are often meant to cause outrage. It discusses his mixed Russian/non-Russian literary pedigree, the controversial reception of his work in the US, Europe and Soviet/post-Soviet Russia. A great deal of previously unpublished archive material is quoted throughout.
Cockrell, Roger
2000 0-7734-7709-8 200 pages
Through an analysis of twenty-five texts, together with the particular dilemmas faced by their authors, this study illuminates a way of thinking that was instrumental in shaping a traumatic period in Russia’s history. Issues include: the attitude of the Bolshevik party toward literature; the relationship between belles-lettres and propaganda; the attitude toward pre-revolutionary culture; the significance of the term ‘proletarian’; the portrayal of heroes in literary texts; and the attitude to be adopted toward writers and artists who were unwilling to conform to the accepted viewpoint. Writers examined include Fadeev, Furmanov, Gladkov, Ivanov, Lavrenev, Leonov, Liashko, Libedinskii, Malyshkin, Pil’niak, Platonov, Seifullina, Serafimovich.
Hunns, Derek J.
1996 0-7734-8825-1 464 pages
This study integrates Bulgakov's Jerusalem Narrative with all the themes of The Master and Margarita to discover what the author believes is Bulgakov's message in the novel. It explains the content and function of the four Jerusalem Chapters and shows that they are an essential part of the novel's theme. The study makes the chapters that rework the Gospels more intelligible for English readers.
Šoljan, Ivo
2015 1-4955-0389-5 588 pages
This volume offers a panorama of Croatian poetry written over the last five centuries. Touching on the different subjects and shifting fashions of poetic creativity throughout Croatia’s turbulent history, this poetry reveals the spirit of its people. The poems are clustered chronologically into chapters representing seven literary periods. The Renaissance, The Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, Croatian Modernism, Echoes of the Two World Wars, and The Postmodern-Contemporary Period. This impressive artistic achievement fills a lacuna in Croatian poetry translation and scholarship.
Kavolis, Vytautas
1995 0-7734-9083-3 233 pages
Provides a comparative investigation, within a civilizational perspective, of particular issues in the sociology of culture, from symbolic conceptions of order and evil, to the current revival of the sacred and the resurgence of nationalism in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.
Briggs, A.D.P.
1990 0-88946-082-5 288 pages
Brings together for comparison three Russian narrative poems by authors who lived in different periods of modern Russian history, covering among their lifespans the whole of the nineteenth century and two decades of the twentieth. Numerous points of contact are seen to emerge, ranging from historical matters to a concurrence of ideas iterating the tragic nature of human life and destiny.
Braun, Kazimierz
2003 0-7734-6791-2 532 pages
Nominated by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)
for the Orbis Prize 2004
This study narrates a millennium long record of Polish theater, focusing on the theatrical annals of cities, productions and their styles, major theater artists – actors, directors, and designers – acting and directorial instruction, theater buildings and stage design, and the changing audiences. The book includes many illustrations.
Druzhnikov, Yuri
1999 0-7734-8161-3 340 pages
This book is an expedition through Russian Literature and history of the 19th and 20th centuries in search of the myths that all Russians take for granted from childhood. The author's iconoclastic, irreverent approach to common sense combined with his wry paradoxical wit make this work an important contribution for American scholars and students to understand Russian culture.
Barta, Peter I.
1989 0-88946-291-7 150 pages
Essays in English and Russian presented at the 1987 symposium commemorating the 150th anniversary of Pushkin's death.
Kopach, Aleh I.
2011 0-7734-1486-X 320 pages
This monograph on naming the geographical objects of Belarus and the United States by means of proper names is the result of a theoretical and comparative investigation of toponyms. The conception of cognitive-onomasiological study of the names of microobjects is presented in the study. The conception is approved and verified on a rich empirical material (no less than 10,000 names for each region).
Efimov, Nina
1998 0-7734-8363-2 224 pages
Includes a variety of topics, prose and poetry, individual works as well as general studies, examining women's literary creativity and their contribution to East Euopean literature of the 20th century. The study addresses a broad range of issues, such as female space, negative attitudes to women's issues in literature, modern interpretation of classic themes and motifs, lyric persona of Marina Cvetaeva through her poetic dialogue with Pasternak and her reader, the influence of Mirra Loxvickaja on Anna Axmatova, Bella Axmadulina's strong links with Russian classics.
Soldat, Cornelia
2013 0-7734-4553-6 540 pages
This is a new look at the one existing copy of the 1572 Testament of Ivan the Terrible. It provides a close textural analyses which will appeal to a broad audience. For the first time this 19th century manuscript discovery is discussed in detail as to its historical discovery and the subsequent problems associated with its authentication and authorship. There is as much about the literary culture in Russia in the nineteenth century as it is about Ivan the Terrible and the testamentary culture and practice in the sixteenth century
Elson, Mark J.
1990 0-88946-292-5 207 pages
Treats the historical morphology of the verbal system of Macedonian, a Slavic language spoken in one-time Yugoslavia. Also considers the importance of the analysis offered in this study for the notion of paradigm in morphological analysis.
Zaslavsky, Olga
2010 0-7734-3645-6 172 pages
This work is a translation of Georgy Efron, the son of one of Russia’s greatest twentieth-century poets, Maria Tsvetaeva.
Buzina, Tatyana
2003 0-7734-6643-6 332 pages
In structuring her argument about the dynamic by which the notions of fate and freedom operate throughout Doetoevsky's canon, Dr. Buzina brings together four different, though interrelated traditions, the romantic tradition from Schelling to Berlin, Old Norse mythology, the Russian Folk tradition as reflected both in folk tales and in old hymns and dirges, and the Bible.
Kraeger, Linda
1992 0-7734-9189-9 212 pages
This work opens a door to a fresh understanding of Dostoevsky's version of the origin of human evil. In his philosophical novels, Dostoevski's view of original conflict and inevitable evil goes far beyond Augustine, Pelagius, and Luther. The authors are the first to build a case for viewing Dostoevsky as a philosophical personalist whose approach to nature provides insight to ecologists. They offer a radically new analysis of the themes of suffering, incarnation, and atonement that will appeal to both psychologists and students of religion and theology. The section on atonement and its relation to the classical theory of tragedy breaks new ground.
Much, Zdzislaw Janusz Mucha
1993 0-7734-9208-9 320 pages
These academic analyses of social problems and processes give a comprehensive, deep, and multi-dimensional view of East European societies. The volume is addressed to a broad audience, not only to specialists in social sciences. It examines revolution, legitimation of power, social conflict, second economy, etc., concentrating on reality of social life and not on abstract ideas and concepts.
Pavlínek, Petr
1997 0-7734-8447-7 444 pages
This book employs a geographical perspective to investigate the nature of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe, and its implications for the quality of the environment, using the extended case study of the Most District located in the Czech Republic. It focuses on four areas of investigation: economic transition from the centrally planned to a market economy in coal mining and the petrochemical industry; political transition from the one party system to a democratic society and its implications for the local government system; effects of economic and political transitions on the quality of the environment and local environmental management; and popular attitudes of Most District citizens toward democratization, economic change and the environment.
Salmin, Anton Kirillovich
2011 0-7734-1546-7 412 pages
An encyclopedia that covers a scientific study of the religions and customs of the Chuvash. This book is written in Russian.
Kraszewski, Charles S.
2002 0-7734-7062-X 176 pages
Barta, Peter I.
1991 0-7734-9660-2 344 pages
The ten articles in this volume will be of interest to experts and students of both Comparative Literature and 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature. The collection will serve as a useful research tool to those studying the history of literary movements and trends. While the focus of each study is the foreign moorings of Russian literature, the volume also interprets prominent European texts from a comparative perspective.
Volková, Bronislava
1997 0-7734-8570-8 208 pages
This study presents alternative views on major works and authors of Czech and Central European literature in a feminist and non-elitist perspective. It examines the cultural biases expressed in selected major works and the underlying (unconscious) values of their authors. Using a semiotic approach, it gives detailed attention to the hidden emotive meanings of the texts. Themes include authors' attitudes to relationships between women and men, the images of women in both older and contemporary Czech literature, nationalistic biases, issues of responsibility, active versus passive approach to life, new visions added to European culture by Czech authors like J. A. Comenius, K. H. Mácha, B. Nemcová, J. Hasek, K. Capek, O. Brezina, J. Seifert, B. Hrabal, M. Kundera, L. Vaculík and others.
Zechenter, Katarzyna
2007 0-7734-5466-7 316 pages
This book examines, for the first time in English, the literary work of Tadeusz Konwicki, one of the most popular and widely translated twentieth-century Polish writers whose prose reflects post-war Polish history, politics, and Sovietisation. In portraying the impact of these changes on people in general and on the intelligentsia in particular, Konwicki recreated the complex Polish-Jewish-Belorussian-Lithuanian world that disappeared by 1945 but survived in the collective memory of the Polish people. Despite Konwicki’s wide-ranging topics and literary styles, the monograph has competently knitted these together around the question of living in the post-Holocaust world by: analysing the political and cultural themes of Konwicki’s fiction; examining Konwicki’s prose, along with some of his films, which have brought him international renown; engaging an impressive number of other critical works about Konwicki; and by explaining the political and social context in which Konwicki’s fiction appeared.
Tyrras, Nicholas
2002 0-7734-7214-2 188 pages
This study examines Tolstoi’s thinking and how Soviet fluctuations in ideology affected interpretations of Russian history the 1920s, 30s, and 40’s. It contains a biographical sketch of A. N. Tolstoi, and examines his short stories, the novel Petr I, and his historical plays Smert’ Dantona [Danton’s Death], Liubov’ – kniga zolotaia [Love is a Golden Book], three versions of Petr I, and Ivan Groznyi [Ivan the Terrible].
Tzvetkov, Plamen S.
1994 0-7734-1958-6 604 pages
This is a Bulgarian view on the history of Eastern Europe and the world. It covers the origin of the Bulgars, medieval Bulgaria, the Byzantine Empire, the five-centuries-long Ottoman rule, the rise of Balkan nationalism, and the history of Bulgaria, the Balkans and Eastern Europe from Bulgaria's constitution as a sovereign state in 1879 up to 1992.
Tzvetkov, Plamen S.
1993 0-7734-1956-X 612 pages
This is a Bulgarian view on the history of Eastern Europe and the world. It covers the origin of the Bulgars, medieval Bulgaria, the Byzantine Empire, the five-centuries-long Ottoman rule, the rise of Balkan nationalism, and the history of Bulgaria, the Balkans and Eastern Europe from Bulgaria's constitution as a sovereign state in 1879 up to 1992.
Stowe, Charles R.B.
1999 0-7734-8019-6 336 pages
An extraordinary study revealing the relationship between foreign financial institutions and the entrepreneurial sector of a transition economy. Developmental and institutional economists, economic historians, and scholars of finance and entrepreneurship will find this extremely valuable. The book exposes the relationship between legal reforms and economic development. It presents a basic primer on Poland's economic development from 1989 through 1994. It provides the most complete history of the entry of foreign financial institutions yet published, and reveals very different marketing strategies used by foreign financial firms to enter the Polish financial services sector. The book describes the realities of the financial services sector at the beginning of the transition period, the policies pursued to promote transition toward a free market economy , and the environment that foreign financial institutions discovered during that period.
Poulton, Leslee
2002 0-7734-6908-7 320 pages
This is a comparative study of the lives and literary production of Russian-born French writers from the 18th to the 20th century: Empress Elizabeth, Catherine the Great, Princess Dashkova; Maria Bashkirtseff, the Comtesse de Ségur; Nathalie Sarraute, Elsa Triolet, Irène Némirovsky, and Zoe Oldenbourg. This book shows how they were influenced by their Russian heritage and how the traditions and impressions of their youth are visible in their French writings.
Williams, Gareth
1990 0-88946-274-7 450 pages
Examines the methods employed by Tolstoy to influence the reader, including the relationship he establishes with the reader and the way he uses images to help the reader join the world of the characters.
Stanton, Leonard J.
2006 0-7734-5783-6 328 pages
The authors present a tripartite thesis in this study. They begin with the fundamental position that the Orthodox religion, though not the Russian Orthodox Church, functions as a sub-text throughout all of Nikolai Gogol’s work, whether fiction, comedy, or essays, the last generally being fiction in another form. There exists, therefore, no separate Gogol of Dead Souls and the tales from Dikanka or Mirgorod or Arabesques, and another Gogol of Selected Passages, the first to be admired and the second to be condemned. There is, instead, a single Nikolai Gogol, for whom religion forms the basic unifying theme in his entire corpus. A second part of the thesis is that Gogol, while writing in the comic vein, both light (The Inspector General) and dark (“The Portrait,” “The Overcoat”), worked neither as a humorist (Mark Twain’s short stories) nor as a satirist (Petronius), but as a moralist, who, like Plato, sought to point to the way toward a general social reformation. Ethical disorder and moral “little failings” would certainly amuse because they were recognized, but the purpose of writing about “little failings” was to move toward a more ordered society where all fulfilled their social obligations. The third part of the thesis concerned Gogol’s literary successors. The authors suggest that Gogol’s overcoat descended not to the Russian Orthodox writers of immense and often Christian novels, but to the Jewish authors of Yiddish tales, often written in the comic style about “little failings” and also attempting to show the way and the need for moral reform of the community.
The authors conclude that Gogol’s work formed a coherent and unified whole, animated by a strong sense of the need for religiously-based reform of the existing social order through attention to social obligations, and this attitude of social reform based upon religion would be repeated within the Russian imperial literary context in the Yiddish tradition of tales and stories.
Urban, William Lawrence
1997 0-7734-8691-7 260 pages
This translation of Renner's 16th century Baltic chronicle is an important source for early modern Russian history, dealing with the rise of Ivan the Terrible. Renner was a secretary to one of the important officers and observed the political process first-hand and he had access to documents and correspondence. The text is extensively footnoted and includes maps to assist the reader in following the complexities of the opening years of the Great Livonian War 1558-1583.
Montgomery, Robert
2006 0-7734-5916-2 380 pages
Winner of the Adele Mellen Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship
This is a monograph on late Imperial Russian and Soviet policies toward the language of the Buryats, a native people of southeastern Siberia’s Lake Baikal region. This work can do much to expand our knowledge of an oft-overlooked area of Russian and Soviet national policy. Although the Buryats are Siberia’s largest indigenous group (numbering around 500,000), they have received far less attention than other non-Russians by scholars of Russia’s treatment of its minority peoples and their cultures. On a more general level, the book will provide an opportunity to introduce readers to a unique and vibrant native Siberian culture. Finally, this study can help deepen our understanding of the challenges facing the cultural survival of all indigenous peoples in the modern age – a matter of urgent importance in the current context of globalization.
Straka, W. W.
1988 0-88946-014-0 430 pages
An edited version of correspondence between Nabokov, a Russian diplomat, and an American friend between the years of 1906 and 1913.
Druzhnikov, Yuri
2006 0-7734-5824-7 352 pages
“That I was born in Russia with feeling and talent is the devil’s curse!” Alexander Pushkin wrote in the last letter to his wife. Eight months later he died. This new scholarly book on Russia’s greatest poet is an electrifying reinterpretation of the official Imperial, Soviet, and Post-Soviet Pushkin studies. While investigating the last and unhappy period of Pushkin’s biography (1830-1837), e.g. ‘the end of Pushkin’s life,’ the author restores paradoxical circumstances that eventually led to the poet’s death. In this book the author constructs a new scholarly version of Pushkin as an artist profoundly at odds not only with his society but also with himself.
The author is by no means the first to expose the weak points of Russian traditional myths, Pushkin’s enrollment into historic and social studies of Russian tyranny, a comparative analysis of Pushkin’s recognition in France, as well as some untouchable aspects of the biography of the poet, paradoxes of a Russian umber – one classic who considered himself in his diary a Russian Dangeau.
Genius constitutes the domain of freedom, whereas any political body (such as the totalitarian state) is an area of constraint. Conflict between genius and authorities is treated as metaphysically inevitable. Pushkin’s final drama and his mental problems were a network of intrigues that inextricably and tragically entangled his personality. Finally in the book, this recognized Pushkin scholar offers a new documented evidence for his paradoxical version of Pushkin’s duel as suicide.
The idolization of the poet in his own country and even abroad raises some troubling issues. What lies behind the need to create national heroes and falsify their biographies, and to what lengths must a country go to discover its national identity and goals? Being an original and provocative analysis of the unknown Pushkin, this monograph will be in many respects an eye-opener to both Slavic scholars, students, and the well-educated general readers.
Nicorescu, Liliana
2010 0-7734-1403-7 692 pages
This work disputes the theory applied by Pierre-Yves Boissau and Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine to Cioran’s most controversial work, The Transfiguration of Romania. These French critics, and contemporaries of Cioran, argued that his works masked certain political ideas. This book, based on numerous Romanian translations, asserts an alternative perspective to Cioran and his work.
Tribble, Keith
2002 0-7734-6964-8 452 pages
George, Emery E.
1995 0-7734-9058-2 312 pages
This is the first American selection of the work of Hungary's most distinguished postwar poet, János Pilinszky (1921-1981). This bilingual edition, comprising about one-third of Pilinszky's collected verse, represents all six of his major collections: Trapeze and Parallel Bars (1946), On the Third Day (1959), Metropolitan Icons (1970), Splinters (1972), Dénouement (1974), and Crater (1976). Among the poems chosen from Metropolitan Icons is a complete new translation of the dramatic recitative "KZ Oratorio". All of the Holocaust poetry as well as major, personally-attuned writing is also presented. The selection is preceded by a detailed Introduction, and closes with Notes on the Poems, many of which solve literary puzzles and make suggestions for further study. There is a bibliography of primary and selected secondary sources, including a list of Pilinszky's work available in English.
Volková, Bronislava
1999 0-7734-3570-0 168 pages
With the assistance of Willis Barnstone, Andrew Durkin, Gregory Orr, and Lilli Parrott Poems communicating a young woman’s internal monologue. In Czech, with English translation.
Rogers, Thomas F.
1992 0-7734-9849-4 348 pages
This book outlines the archetypes of Soviet fiction, showing the remarkably recurrent and largely unconscious pattern from one author to the next over a period of some seven decades in Soviet letters. Authors include: Zamyatin, Babel, Olesha, Pil'nyak, Platonov, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Rasputin, Aytmatov, and the film-maker Tarkovsky. A number of these writers' narratives are, on the surface, highly fragmented and obscure, and most are still not well-known by nonspecialists in the West. This archetypal elucidation renders their writing intelligible and meaningful to a wider readership. The concluding chapter reviews the following ancillary themes: the authors' generally tragic philosophical ambivalence; their powerful and uncompromising use of psychosexual imagery; their synthesis of archaic and Judeo-Christian symbols; their implicit commentary on the role of the artist as catalyst for sensitization and social reform; and the reflection in their writing of their personal circumstances and world view vis-a-vis the Soviet regime and the historical period during which each lived.
Kanevskaya, Marina
2001 0-7734-7582-6 384 pages
This study analyzes why Mikhailovsky, a leading Russian socialist philosopher and literary critic of the mid-19th century, expressed the most insightful, proto-Bakhtinian views on Dostoevsky’s writings. It examines the social and cultural context, specifically in the political climate of Mikhailovsky’s journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, the most popular magazine of its time. Russian socialist and populist literary criticism remains terra incognita outside Russia, and stereotypical perception of it as obtuse, boring, and appropriated by socialist realism has prevented scholars from focusing on the literary and ideological values of it. However, the roots of modern Russian thought and self identity took their shape under the direct influence of such social thinkers as Mikhailovsky. Examining the proto-Bakhtinian traits of Mikhailovsky’s criticism of Dostoevsky shows the cultural and historical pretext of Backhtin’s discoveries.
Yovino-Young, Marjorie
1993 0-7734-9307-7 140 pages
This study challenges the prevailing claim that there is no connection between ritual and the Russian folktale. It reveals the author's discovery of two primary magic spell forms found in pagan ceremonies and folk literature. These binary and trinary invocation forms appear in a number of variations and contain basic rhythmic elements found in primitive music and folk songs. They are similar to those found on verbal and incident levels in 20 Russian magic tales. Their basic rhythmic elements are compared to like phenomena noted in the Russian language verbal aspect system, and to primitive music. In addition to the binary/trinary ritual forms, embedded patterns of ancient rituals have been delineated in "Shabarsha" and "By Pike's Command," two well-known Russian tales. Superimposed on these ritual patterns are yet other patterns of mythic images, revealing new insights into the mental world of those who created these tales of wonder.
Beresford, M.
1996 0-7734-8840-5 320 pages
This play appeals to students of Russian and theatre people alike. This edition, the most comprehensive ever produced, provides the reader with all that is required for a full understanding of Gogol's classic. Every aspect of the play has been carefully researched, and a detailed account of its composition, reception and stage history is given in the introduction. The text, in the original Russian, is accompanied by a commentary on all points of linguistic, literary or historical interest. There are copious notes on colloquial Russian idiom. Misconceptions about the nature and purpose of Gogol's dramatic masterpiece are common, and the editor has taken great pains to set the record straight, using evidence taken from the writings of Gogol and his contemporaries. The play, innocent of any political intent, emerges not as a light-hearted farce, but as a subtle satirical comedy, a brilliant exposé not just of bribery but of corruption in many guises.
Strajnic, Nikola
2017 1-4955-0514-6 108 pages
Author explores the possibilities of expressing existential experiences of poets and philosophers since ancient times. This collection of essays reviews the original poetic and philosophical views recognized as an alternative to more reductive views such as naturalism or relativistic doctrines found in a postmodern world.
Reid, John McKellor
2007 0-7734-5388-1 224 pages
This groundbreaking study insists that critical tradition has conspired to emasculate the polemical force Chekhovian comedy out of misplaced respect for his renowned objectivity and his loathing of overt moralizing. A rhetorical framework of analysis is predicated upon the assumption that all writings are implicated in ‘interestedness’ – the critic’s task is to uncover the rhetorical parameters and nature of that ‘interestedness.’ Through analyses of each of Chekhov’s plays in its original context, the author identifies the rhetorical potential that remains neglected in contemporary readings and productions. All of the readings in this study are addressed to actors and directors – inviting them to reassess and reclaim the force of these plays for our time.
Ablamowicz, Halina
2008 0-7734-4934-5 204 pages
A translation of 25 poems that chronicle an under researched period of Polish history. This book contains seven color photographs and one black and white photograph.
Hacikyan, Agop J.
1995 0-7734-9044-2 144 pages
The essays in this collection are not only personal records, documenting Azadian's literary experiences and convictions, but also the fruit of long analysis. The author engages his readers to the major themes in Armenian literature, and acquaints them with the modern masters in Armenian prose and poetry. Azadian's critical methodology is to penetrate his subject matter via the writer's personal life and professional output. A disciplined, self-described modernist, he views his literary figures in the light of originality and modernism.
Ryfa, Juras T.
1999 0-7734-8172-9 252 pages
This study presents a newly detailed account of Chekov's trip to Sakhalin, draws together scarce secondary material concerning the book, and offers new insights into the problematic aspects of genre in light of the most recent critical and theoretical developments. Meanwhile, following Chekhov's remarkable story, the author connects the past to the present in a variety of spheres, including Russians' attitudes towards governance and the continuing geopolitical sensitivity of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
Vuletic, Ivana
2003 0-7734-6777-7 220 pages
Yugoslav author Danilo Kiš is one of the best-known fiction writers of central and southeastern Europe. This study examines Kiš’s prose as a textual exploration of different modes of self-constitution, executed in order to construct a personal history and a self-portrait. It examines Kiš’s ‘family cycle’ (the novels Early Sorrows; Garden, Ashes; and Hourglass) as a performative act in which a textual inscription of the self mimics the gradual unfolding and constitution of the subject through the three different orders described in Lacan’s writings as Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real. Another chapter analyzes the documentary film Bare Existence (directed by Aleksandar Mandic) for which Kiš co-wrote the script and in which he appears as the interviewer of two women.
Adeli, Lisa
2009 0-7734-4745-8 244 pages
During World War II, the Croatian ultra-nationalist Ustaa persecuted nearly two million Serbs, Jews, and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia (present-day Croatia and Bosnia). Political analysts today often cite this genocide as proof that ethnic violence within the region is inevitable. However, an equally important reality is that within just four years, Ustaa excesses had provoked a widespread popular reaction against the violence and the national exclusivity that inspired it.
Kraszewski, Charles S.
1997 0-7734-2223-4 336 pages
Tyrras, Nicholas
2010 0-7734-3849-1 492 pages
Although new histories of Russia, often reflecting the author’s cultural slant, appear regularly, there is a dearth of books that explain the Russian perspective. This work takes the opposite approach by acquainting readers with some of the foremost ideas in Russian cultural history. This book contains twelve color photographs and sixteen black and white photographs.
Kochetkova, Tatjana
2007 0-7734-5412-8 484 pages
This book traces the quest for self-realization that inspired the Russian Cultural Renaissance at the turn of the twentieth century, also called the Silver Age, from its fin-de-siècle inception until the present day. Following the historical periods under consideration, the study breaks into three parts: the first is concerned with the quest for transcendence in Vladimir Solov’ëv’s theory of Divine Humanity; the second considers the way in which Solov’ëv’s Silver Age philosophical and poetic followers utilized and developed his ideas about self-realization; finally, the third considers contemporary discussions regarding the possibility of transcendence and self-realization. This book goes beyond mere historical-philosophical curiosity: it is an attempt to understand the idea of self-realization in a global context.
Skrupskelis, Viktoria
1996 0-7734-8797-2 236 pages
Sorkin, Adam J.
1992 0-7734-9172-4 232 pages
This dual-language volume is the first book-length presentation in the United States of the major works of this celebrated poet. Anghel Dumbraveanu has been one of his country's most important writers over the last three decades. Winner of numerous awards and author of twenty-five volumes of poetry, prose, and translations, he also edits a new literary and culture journal, The Timisoara Meridian, which he founded after the 1989 revolution.
Hacikyan, Agop J.
1990 0-88946-745-5 144 pages
Translation of selected poems of one of the pioneers of modern Armenian poetry, Zareh Khrakhouni.
Hacikyan, Agop J.
1992 0-7734-9198-8 296 pages
Translated selection of the writings of Vahram Mavian, a unique voice in contemporary Armenian Diaspora literature, which expresses the concerns and anxieties surrounding the first generation Armenians living outside their homeland. Expresses his concern with personal problems - the precarious state of Armenian language and culture, the preservation of cultural identity, and the diminishing interest of the next generation in their cultural legacy.
Fielder, Grace E.
1993 0-7734-9313-1 460 pages
This study examines the choice of tense, aspect and mood categories in subordinate clauses as a function of the utterance meaning. Examines the grammatical (or morphosyntactic), lexical, semantic and pragmatic components. The data have been taken from contemporary Bulgarian prose and tested extensively with native speakers of Bulgarian. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors are included in the discussion. The study provides not only a significant resource for real language data, but also addresses the theoretical implications of a "context" approach. This study is intended for both the Slavic and general linguist, and a knowledge of Bulgarian is not assumed.
Milanovi, Bratislav R.
2010 0-7734-1462-2 116 pages
Doors in the Meadow is a translation of a collection of poems from the Serbian Vrata u Polju by Serbian poet, Bratislav Milanovi?, by Biljana D. Obradovi?. The collection includes thirty nine recent poems by the poet, published in the last decade or so.
Barker, Peter
2000 0-7734-7704-7 256 pages
Charts the development of the Soviet-influenced nationalities policy in the German Democratic Republic, using the internal files of the SED (Communist Party) and the Stasi to demonstrate that the German Communists, despite initial attempts by some leading figures to redress the effects of the repressive policies of the Nazi state, ultimately accepted that greater cultural autonomy e for the Sorbians ran counter to their plans for the economic and political restructuring of East German society. The GDR did, however, create Sorbian cultural institutions and the bilingual school system which have survived the upheavals of German unification in 1990.
Gluchman, Vasil
1997 0-7734-8651-8 168 pages
This volume investigates the meaning and contribution of Slovak Lutheran Social Ethics to the formation of social ethical thinking in Slovakia. It is a systematic view, examining it in the social, political and spiritual context of the development of the Slovak nation, Slovakia and Czechoslovakia, linking the development of the Protestant social ethics in Europe and the world. Chapter I presents a methodological background for the understanding of problems of social ethics in general, emphasizing Slovak Lutheran Social Ethics. Chapter II presents an historical survey of the development of Lutheranism in Slovakia, and then analyzes the development of the social and ethical opinions of Slovak Lutherans from about the end of the 19th century to the end of WWII. Chapter III follows a Christian Socialist line and the Christian Realist line after WWII. Chapter IV investigates the period from 1948 to the present.
Rusnock, K. Andrea
2010 0-7734-3692-8 268 pages
This book argues that Socialist Realist paintings, typically seen by western art historians as examples of retrograde art and by scholars of Soviet history simply as propaganda, were a part of an extensive program of skillful artistic practice coupled with masterful propaganda. This book contains fourteen color photographs.
Cote, Maureen E.
2010 0-7734-1413-4 228 pages
This is the first English translation of Sophia Tolstoy’s short story, Who’s to Blame?, published in Russia in 1994. Sophia had written the story almost one hundred years earlier to rebut her husband Leo’s cynical views about love and marriage, including male sexuality, adultery, and jealousy, expressed in his novel published in 1888, The Kreutzer Sonata.
Editor's Introduction:
At first Sophia Tolstoy did not see any connection between the attitudes expressed toward women in The Kreutzer Sonata and her marriage to Tolstoy; but when she heard that Alexander III remarked, upon reading the novel, that he felt sorry for her, her vanity was offended. Worse, the Tsar’s pity was followed by expressions of sympathy from her family and friends. Sophia was particularly disturbed by the condolences of Tolstoy’s best friend Dmitri Dyakov and by Tolstoy’s older brother Sergei. What did these two men know about Tolstoy’s feelings toward her and their marriage that Sophia did not know?
Sophia compared the jealousy of Tolstoy’s protagonist, Pozdnyshev, to the unwarranted jealousy that Tolstoy inflicted on Sophia throughout their married life. She knew that she had never given Tolstoy any reason for doubt her fidelity. The sophisticated courtiers took one look at the matronly mother of nine and knew that Sophia was neither a coquette nor an adulteress. What then, the courtiers wondered, was the real reason for the rage that erupted from Tolstoy’s pen against women in The Kreutzer Sonata?
Nemets, Alexandr
1996 0-7734-8798-0 116 pages
The process of rapid growth of the economic potential of China is accompanied by establishment of Chinese economic control over neighboring countries and regions, including eastern regions of the former Soviet Union. This study contains detailed research and analyses of the economic process of China and the former USSR and the relationship between them.
Tejerizo, Margaret H.
2007 0-7734-5193-5 352 pages
This monograph studies the characteristics of the reception, familiarization and influence of Russian writers in late nineteen- and early twentieth-century Spain. Beginning with early Spanish attitudes towards Pushkin, the author offers a reassessment of the evidence in this long-neglected area of investigation.
Shirinian, Lorne
1992 0-7734-9613-0 108 pages
Essays included in this volume are: Armenian-North American Literature and the Possibility of a Diaspora Culture; Lost Fathers and Abandoned Sons - The Silence of Generations in Armenian-North American Literature; Armenia Imagined - Homeland and Diaspora in Armenian-North American Literature; and Exile, Diaspora and the Armenian Writer in a Multicultural Canada. The essays stand in relation to the recent events in the Community of Independent States, specifically the independence of the Republic of Armenia, represents the most up-to-date thinking on the Diaspora.
Strong, Carol R.
2010 0-7734-4711-3 600 pages
This book modifies Weber’s conception of legitimate authority to examine the connections between charismatic authority and radical societal change. It argues that the form and duration of the emerging charismatic authority depends on both longer-term variables (the existing political system and culture) and more transient ones (a suitable leader; media influence; the international perspective; and specific events sparking radical change). The hypothesis is tested using three case studies: Yeltsin in Russia, Havel in Czechia and Kohl in Germany, primarily between 1989 and 1991.
Dyer, Donald L.
1999 0-7734-8037-4 220 pages
For half a century, Soviet linguists tried to drive a wedge between the Romanians of Moldova and their ethnic and linguistic kindred across the river in Romania. Attempts were made to create an independent literary language called ‘Moldavian', which according to Soviet linguistics and their followers was lexically, phonologically, even grammatically distinct from standard Romanian. These attempts failed, but for most of the Soviet period, the Romanian of Moldova.
The present work examines through a series of contemporary essays the history of Soviet language policy in Moldova. Special attentions is paid to the actual dialectal features of Moldovan Romanian, its borrowed lexical stock from Russian and the relationship between the Romanian of Moldova and other languages spoken in the region, such as Bulgarian and Gagauz. A special feature is a series of interviews in the appendices, with both politicians and academicians, including Mircea Snegur, President of Moldova.
Matual, David
1992 0-7734-9502-9 212 pages
This is the first detailed study of Tolstoy's Soedinenie i perevod chetyrek evangelii (Union and Translation of the Four Gospels), a work he regarded as his finest and most important scholarly endeavor. One of the theses of this book is that Tolstoy's gospel did not lead to his religious views, but that his views gave rise to his gospels.
Windle, Kevin
2001 0-7734-7500-1 384 pages
This book examines all known prose and dramatic works by Mikhail Bulgakov in the context of his life and times. In the earlier chapters, evidence of his first steps in literature is correlated with the known facts of his career and used to build a picture of some biographical episodes which have not been recorded. Subsequent chapters focus on his works, from his earliest feuilletons and stories to his major plays and novels.
Rosneck, Karen
2010 0-7734-3674-X 232 pages
By examining the function of fidelity in human relationships and in the mimetic aims of contemporary realist aesthetics, Khvoshshchinskaia reveals the dynamics of domination and control which inform them. This book contains two color photographs.
Goodlett, David E.
2007 0-7734-5398-9 208 pages
This study examines the Yugoslav government’s policy on the rapidly escalating Yugoslav worker emigration from 1963-1973 through the coverage of that emigration in the major Yugoslav news media during these same years. Because the Yugoslav press contained a degree of contrasting opinion that was high relative to other Communist states during the same period, while at the same time allowing no questioning of settled policy, its coverage of this subject provides a useful window into the shifting attitudes toward worker emigration of the government and especially of President Tito. Using as sources the major Yugoslav newspapers and other periodicals, as well as dispatches from Tanjug, the Yugoslav government’s official news agency, and translations of radio broadcasts, the picture comes clearly into focus of a government struggling to manage the effects of this exodus, but unable to affect the outflow in a substantive way because it was unavoidable given the external labor markets and the policy of self-management itself.
Partridge, Colin
1990 0-88946-293-3 208 pages
The first full-length book in English on Trifonov (1925-1981). Outlines this major Soviet writer's subtle adaptations of conventional Socialist Realism to promote a discreet internal criticism of social shortcomings during several decades of Soviet administration. Discusses the five novellas and one novel comprising Trifonov's Moscow Cycle: The Exchange, Taking Stock, The Long Goodbye, Another Life, The House on the Embankment, The Time and the Place.