Dostoevsky's democracy / Nancy Ruttenburg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ruttenburg, Nancy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881--Political and social views.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881--Criticism and interpretation.

Democracy in literature.

Serfdom--Russia--History.

Serfdom.

Russia--Politics and government--1801-1917.

Russia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Dostoevsky's Democracy offers a major reinterpretation of the life and work of the great Russian writer by closely reexamining the crucial transitional period between the early works of the 1840's and the important novels of the 1860's. Sentenced to death in 1849 for utopian socialist political activity, the 28-year-old Dostoevsky was subjected to a mock execution and then exiled to Siberia for a decade, including four years in a forced labor camp, where he experienced a crisis of belief. It has been influentially argued that the result of this crisis was a conversion to Russian Orthodoxy and reactionary politics. But Dostoevsky's Democracy challenges this view through a close investigation of Dostoevsky's Siberian decade and its most important work, the autobiographical novel Notes from the House of the Dead (1861). Nancy Ruttenburg argues that Dostoevsky's crisis was set off by his encounter with common Russians in the labor camp, an experience that led to an intense artistic meditation on what he would call Russian "democratism." By tracing the effects of this crisis, Dostoevsky's Democracy presents a new understanding of Dostoevsky's aesthetic and political development and his role in shaping Russian modernity itself, especially in relation to the preeminent political event of his time, peasant emancipation.

Contents:

Introduction

Building out the house of the dead: part I

Building out the house of the dead: part II

Conclusion: the Russian people, this unriddled sphinx.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-261) and index.

ISBN:

9786612158278

9781400828920

1400828929

9781282158276

1282158279

OCLC:

432996644