Description: A leading scholar of Russian literature and culture offers a collection of essays that focus on the interaction of life and literature, ranging from the 18th to the 20th century. In the first part, Reyfman examines how obligatory state service and the Table of Ranks shaped Russian writers' views, and the second part brings together articles on Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and other aspects of Russian literary and cultural history.
Review Quotes: "Irina Reyfman is that rare scholar who reads contexts as subtly and as insightfully as she reads texts. In this volume the range and depth are are exceptional, stretching from the early eighteenth century to the twentieth and from duels, to love, to flogging, to the bureaucracy, and to the eternal, in short, to what draws readers to the classic Russian texts she analyzes and contextualizes with such convincing originality. Anyone who reads or teaches Russian history and literature will find this book both engaging and illuminating."--William Mills Todd III, Harvard University