Reconstructing the Canon

Russian Writing in the 1980s

Arnold McMillin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367721916
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000386622
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

This book, first published in 2000, features analyses about and by some of the most important Russian writers of the 1980s, a period of great changes in the cultural life of Russia when the controls of Soviet communism gave way to a wide diversity of unfettered writing. A variety of critical approaches matches the diversity of Russian writers considered here. The book features David Bethea's theoretical discussion of the work of the outstanding critic and cholar Iurii Lotman and a fascinating extending interview with leading poet Ol'ga Sedakova. Several writers and works receive their first scholarly analyses in English, such as Sasha Sokolov's complex postmodern novel, Between Dog and Wolf, Elena Shvarts's poetry, and Zinovii Zinik's work. Aleksandr Zinov'ev's prose is subjected to a searching formal analysis. The book contains an essay on the literary environment of the Moscow poet Mikhail Aizenberg, and a highly controversial article that reviews Russian writing as an extension of imperialism. Writers who for various reasons fell into opprobrium during the 1980s include the Soviet village writers and the late Andrei Siniavskii (Abram Tertz). A survey of urban prose in the late 1980s looks into an uncertain future, while playwright Viktor Slavkin represents the best of contemporary Russian drama.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Series
• Preface
• Introduction
• “Iurii Lotman in the 1980s: the Code and Its Relation to Literary Biography” Bethea, David
• “Conform Not to This Age: an Interview with Ol’ga Sedakova” Polukhina, Valentina
• “Elena Shvarts and the Distances of Self-Disclosure” Sandler, Stephanie
• “An Odd Man Out: the Poetics of Mikhail Aizenberg” Zinik, Zinovy
• “Zinovy Zinik’s Gothic Suburbia” Porter, Robert
• “Back to the Future: Andrei Siniavskii and Kapitanskaia dochka” Grayson, Jane
• “System and Structure in the Work of Aleksandr Zinov’ev” Kirkwood, Michael
• “The Dissolution of Reality in Sasha Sokolov’s Mezhdu sobakoi i volkom” Kolb, Hanna
• “Russian Village Prose in Paraliterary Space” Parthé, Kathleen
• “Russian Literature and Imperialism: the Late Soviet and Early Post-Soviet Periods” Thompson, Ewa
• “Blues at Forty: the Plays of Viktor Slavkin” Russell Robert
• “Kavalerovs and Coffins: Urban Prose of the eighties” Dalton-Brown, Sally
• “Vladimir Sorokin and the Norm” Gillespie, David
• Index