Russian Literature and Empire - Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy (Paperback, Revised)

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.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature
Release date:	September 2005
First published:	1994
Authors:	Susan Layton
Dimensions:	215 x 139 x 20mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	372
Edition:	Revised
ISBN-13:	978-0-521-02001-5
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century
LSN:	0-521-02001-8
Barcode:	9780521020015

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