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Overturning the view of early Russian prose fiction as a pale imitation of European models, this discussion locates the origins of the Russian novel in 18th century indigenous writing. Tracing the novel's development, it analyzes the prose of Fedor Emin, Mikhail Chulkov and Matvei Komarov.

This work describes the interplay between peasant religious life and the broader social and cultural transformation of late tsarist Russia. Chulos challenges existing conceptions of religion in Russia and sheds light on the development of modern national identity.

Analyzes the ideas and activities of the parish clergy serving in St Petersburg, the capital of imperial Russia, in order to discover how the Russian Orthodox Church responded theologically and pastorally to the profound social, economic, and cultural changes that transformed Russia during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Drawing on archival sources from Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, this work addresses the shifting identity and fate of Ruthenians on both sides of the Orthodox/Uniate divide during the politically charged era of the partitions of Poland. It is suitable for those studying the tensions between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

An English language work to analyze the Christian renewal in Crimea. Drawing on archives in Odessa, Simferopol, and St Petersburg, it provides both a case study of past and present religious nationalism in Eastern Europe and an examination of the political conflicts and compromises endemic to holy places.

The metaphor of the nomad may at first seem surprising for Russia given its history of serfdom, travel restrictions, and strict social hierarchy. This book traces the image of the nomad and its relationship to Russian national identity through the debates and discussion of works by writers like Karamzin, Pushkin, Goncharov, and Dostoevsky.

The schism that split the Russian Orthodox Church in 1667 alienated thousands of devout men and women - the Old Believers - who practiced their faith as outsiders for more than two centuries. This book explores how the Old Believers adapted to rapid change in the early 20th century and reveals the many facets of Old Believer life.

The author is widely recognized as one of the leading living Russian poets and prose writers. In this title, his story radiates out, relaying the poet's personal history through 1994, including his unique perspective on the 1991 coup by Communist hardliners resisted by Boris Yeltsin.

Focusing on the lived experience of individuals in Russia and Ukraine, these essays explore continuity and change comparatively and in the context of larger interpretative issues, such as popular culture, mentality, and religious belief.

A significant political figure in twentieth-century Russia, Alexander Yakovlev was the intellectual force behind the processes of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) that liberated the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from Communist rule between 1989 and 1991. Yet, until now, not a single full-scale biography has been devoted to...

The inhabitants of Vilnius, the present-day capital of Lithuania, have spoken various languages and professed different religions while living together in relative harmony over the years. The city has played a significant role in the history and development of at least three separate cultures-Polish, Lithuanian, and Jewish-and until very...

How did enlightened Russians of the eighteenth century understand society? And how did they reconcile their professed ideals of equality and justice with the authoritarian political structures in which they lived? Historian Elise Wirtschafter turns to literary plays to reconstruct the social thinking of the past and to discover how...

Anthropologist Jasmina Praprotnik met Helena Zigon while running. Over the course of an icy Slovenian winter, the two marathon runners got together frequently, and Zigon told Praprotnik about her life. Here, Praprotnik tells Zigon's captivating story in Zigon's own voice. Each chapter is marked by a kilometer of the half-marathon Zigon ran...

After spending his childhood in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and witnessing the Communist takeover of his country in 1948, a young journalist named Milan Kubic embarked on a career as a Newsweek correspondent that spanned thirty-one years and three continents, reporting on some of the most memorable events in the Middle East. Now, Kubic tells...

State of Madness examines the politically fraught collision between psychiatric and literary discourses in the years after Joseph Stalin's death.

A Yiddish Book Center Translation In these sixteen stories, available in English for the first time, prize-winning author Yenta Mash traces an arc across continents, across upheavals and regime changes, and across the phases of a woman's life. Mash's protagonists are often in transit, poised "on the landing" on their way to or from somewhere...

The large number of Jews living in Polish lands had lived as a separate estate from the Poles until the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on many long-term factors and one major event - the Revolution of 1905 - this book traces Poland's failed attempts to integrate its Jewish communities into the country's social fabric.

Offers a firsthand account of the life of Marek Hlasko, a young writer whose iconoclastic way of life became an inspiration in 1950s Poland. Detailing relationships with such giants of Polish culture as the filmmaker Roman Polanski and the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, this memoir recounts his adventures and misadventures abroad in the postwar era.