An Outline of Russian Literature

A compact historical survey traces the development of Russian letters from medieval origins through the nineteenth-century flowering, linking literary forms to social and ecclesiastical influences. It describes early sagas, chronicles, and the impact of Norse settlement and the Byzantine Church on language and culture, then follows the emergence of a new poetic age centered on Pushkin, the subsequent work of Lermontov, and the rise of realist prose. Later chapters examine the period of reform, the major novelists Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and a second poetic revival, while noting issues of translation, critical reception abroad, and the interplay between national character and literary expression.