Description: Refining Russia is a pioneering study of the development of advice literature ("how-to" books such as etiquette manuals and brochures on hygiene) in Russia, and of its reception and wider cultural meaning. An absorbing and original exercise in "history of the book," it is also a major contribution to the understanding of Russia's relationship with the West, and of the cultural world inhabited by the Russian intelligentsia.
Review Quotes: "Refining Russia is a tremendous undertaking...a
substantial book about conduct guides andmanners..."--Slavic and East European Journal"A comprehensive, original, and thought-provoking history, to which this review cannot do justice. Anyone interested in the Russian literary canon from Pushkin to Erofeev; anyone interested in the dvorianstvo or the intelligentsia as a social and ideological formation in one or another period of modern history; anyone interested in gender or print culture; anyone interested in the Slavophile movement, or vegetarianism, or sexual mores, or Stalinist kul'turnost --in short, anyone interested in virtually any aspect of Russian culture-- will find much food for thought in this marvelous book."--The Journal of Modern History