Russian Language and Literature

This program enriches students' understanding of this rapidly changing and strategically important region of the world through a robust offering of courses in language, literature, history, politics, art, anthropology, film, music, and economics.

The Nanovic Institute for European Studies aims to enrich the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs, and institutions that shape Europe today.

Presenting essays by a distinguished array of contributors, the Companion is a valuable resource for historical and contextual material, whether on early writings such as "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," on the monumental Walden, or on Thoreau’s assorted journals and later books. It also serves in some ways as a biographical guide, offering new insights into his turbulent publishing career, and his brief but extraordinarily original life.

"Russia’s size, the diversity of its peoples and its unique geographical position straddling East and West have created a culture that is both inward and outward looking. Its history reflects the tension between very different approaches to what culture can and should be, and this tension shapes the vibrancy of its arts today. The highly successful first edition of Rzhevsky’s Companion has been updated to include post-Soviet trends and new developments in the twenty-first century. It brings together leading authorities writing on Russian cultural identity, its Western and Asian connections, popular culture and the unique Russian contributions to the arts. Each of the eleven chapters has been revised or entirely rewritten to take account of current cultural conditions and the further reading brought up to date. The book reveals, for students, academic researchers and all those interested in Russia, the dilemmas, strengths and complexities of the Russian cultural experience"-- Provided by publisher.

"The moniker ’Silver Age’ refers to the epoch of early and high modernism in Russian culture, which began around the mid-1890s and was put to a rather abrupt end by the October 1917 Revolution. While the most fundamental feature of this time period is marked by its idealist philosophical revolution--a trend Russia shared with other European cultures--its most spectacular manifestation on the Russian scene undoubtedly belonged to poetry and art. In less than a quarter of a century, Russia produced a remarkable constellation of poets, quite a few of whom (Alexander Blok, Mikhail Kuzmin, Osip Mandelshtam, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Viktor Khlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky) stood at the world-wide cutting edge of the poetic culture of their time. The very feeling of the era seemed to be saturated with poetry: even those authors whose main talent and achievements lay in the domain of prose--such as Andrei Bely, Dmitrii Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Fedor Sologub, and Ivan Bunin--made significant contributions to the poetic landscape of the time as well. The flowery name of the age was probably indigenous to the epoch itself, although it never surfaced in documents of the time, perhaps because it was just too obvious to be mentioned. It lay dormant in the collective memory for almost half a century, until it surfaced almost simultaneously in two venues--in the title of critic Sergei Makovsky’s memoirs, On the Parnassus of the Silver Age (Munich, 1962), and in a line in Akhmatova’s ’Poem without a Hero’ (first published in 1965) which mentions ’the silver moon hovering brightly over the Silver Age’"-- Provided by publisher.

This volume of specially commissioned essays explores the world of Anton Chekhov - one of the most important dramatists in the repertoire - and the creation, performance and interpretation of his works. The Companion begins with an examination of Chekhov’s life, his Russia, and the original productions of his plays at the Moscow Art Theatre. Later film versions and adaptations of Chekhov’s works are analysed, with valuable insights also offered on acting Chekhov, by Ian McKellen, and directing Chekhov, by Trevor Nunn and Leonid Heifetz. The volume also provides essays on ’special topics’ such as Chekhov as writer, Chekhov and women, and the Chekhov comedies and stories. Key plays, such as The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull, receive dedicated chapters while lesser-known works and genres are also brought to light. The volume concludes with appendices of primary sources, lists of works, and a select bibliography.

Key dimensions of Dostoevskii’s writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. Contributors examines topics such as Dostoevskii’s relation to folk literature, money, religion, the family and science. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for scholars and students.

Key dimensions of Dostoevskii’s writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. Contributors examines topics such as Dostoevskii’s relation to folk literature, money, religion, the family and science. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for scholars and students.

Alexander Pushkin stands in a unique position as the founding father of Russian literature. In this Companion, leading scholars discuss Pushkin’s work in its political, literary, social and intellectual contexts. In the first part of the book individual chapters analyse his poetry, his theatrical works, his narrative poetry and historical writings. The second section explains and samples Pushkin’s impact on broader Russian culture by looking at his enduring legacy in music and film from his own day to the present. Special attention is given to the reinvention of Pushkin as a cultural icon during the Soviet period. No other volume available brings together such a range of material and such comprehensive coverage of all Pushkin’s major and minor writings. The contributions represent state-of-the-art scholarship that is innovative and accessible, and are complemented by a chronology and a guide to further reading.