Silhouettes of Russian Writers

Selected Essays by Yuli Aikhenvald

Yuli Aikhenvald (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

274 Seiten

2025
Academic Studies Press (Verlag)
979-8-88719-720-3 (ISBN)

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Nabokov's early artistic life, was one of the most influential Russian literary critics of the early 20th century. This collection, presented in English for the first time, offers Aikhenvald's impassioned interpretations of major Russian authors and a timely theoretical vision addressing an urgent question in this "crisis-of-the-humanities" moment: What is the function of criticism?

Yuli Aikhenvald was one of the most popular and influential Russian literary critics of the early 1900s. His major book, Silhouettes of Russian Writers, went through six ever-expanding editions. A major presence in Vladimir Nabokov’s early career, Aikhenvald has since been neglected by other writers and critics. This collection translates several of Aikhenvald’s key essays, making him available to English-speaking readers for the first time. Today’s readers will discover in these writings original, impassioned interpretations of major Russian authors and a theoretical vision that grapples with an urgent question in this “crisis-of-the-humanities” moment: What is the function of criticism?

Tatyana Gershkovich is the William S. Dietrich Associate Professor of Russian Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the author of Art in Doubt: Tolstoy, Nabokov, and the Problem of Other Minds (Northwestern UP, 2022), and essays published in PMLA, the Slavic and Eastern European Journal, the Journal of the History of Ideas, the Paris Review, and other publications. Her scholarship has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The American Academy in Berlin, and the International Vladimir Nabokov Society. Stephen H. Blackwell teaches Russian literature and language at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has published widely on the works of Vladimir Nabokov, including most recently Nabokov’s Secret Trees (2024), and several prior works on Nabokov’s scientific activities.

Acknowledgments

Note on the Translation

The Translators

Translators’ Introduction, by Stephen H. Blackwell

Part One: Critical Essays

The Self-Dissolution of Criticism

Immortal Poshlost

The Writer and the Reader

In Praise of Idleness

Part Two: Silhouettes of Russian Writers

Theoretical Premises

Pushkin

Nikolai Gogol

Leo Tolstoy

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chekhov

Afterword: “In Memory of Yu. I. Aikhenvald,” by Vladimir Nabokov

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	18.04.2025
Übersetzer	Tatyana Gershkovich, Stephen H. Blackwell
Zusatzinfo	Illustrations
Verlagsort	Brighton
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 228 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
ISBN-13	979-8-88719-720-3 / 9798887197203
Zustand	Neuware