Russian Literature: Ideals and Realities
Peter Kropotkin

Introduction by George Woodcock

In this work, Peter Kropotkin is propounding the thesis that, in Russia, literature occupies a unique position because it is the only way of reflecting the real currents of intellectual development and of underground political opinion. The consequence, he feels, has been that the best minds of the country have chosen the poem, the novel, the satire, or literary criticism as the medium for expressing their aspirations, their conceptions of national life, and their ideals. Concentrating on content rather than on form, on intention rather than achievement, Russian Literature provides a fair and comprehensive introduction to Russian writing up to the end of the nineteenth century. Almost every poet and prose-writer of any significance is discussed – Pushkin, Lermontoff, Gogol, Turgueneff, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky – and every class of literature is included; criticism as well as novels, and political writings as well as poetry.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• The Pronunciation of Russian Names
• An Introduction by George Woodcock
• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: Pushkin and Lermontoff
• Chapter III: Gogol Chapter IV: Turgueneff - Tolotsy Chapter V: Gontcharoff – Dostoyevskiy – Nekrasoff
• Chapter VI: The Drama
• Chapter VII: The Folk Novelists
• Chapter VIII: Political Literature – Satire – Art Criticism – Later Period Novelists
• Bibliographical Notes
• Appendices
• Index
  

415 pages; 1991

Part of our Collected Works of Peter Kropotkin
ISSN: 1188-5807

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