Pushkin, the Decembrists, and Civic Sentimentalism / Emily Wang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wang, Emily (Professor of Russian), author.

Series:

Publications of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies.

Publications of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Decembrists.

Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, 1799-1837.

Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2023]

Summary:

In December 1825, a group of liberal aristocrats, officers, and intelligentsia mounted a coup against the tsarist government of Russia. Inspired partially by the democratic revolutions in the United States and France, the Decembrist movement was unsuccessful; however, it led Russia's civil society to new avenues of aspiration and had a lasting impact on Russian culture and politics. Many writers and thinkers belonged to the conspiracy while others, including the poet Alexander Pushkin, were loosely or ambiguously affiliated. While the Decembrist movement and Pushkin's involvement has been well covered by historians, Emily Wang takes a novel approach, examining the emotional and literary motivations behind the movement and the dramatic, failed coup.Through careful readings of the literature of Pushkin and others active in the northern branch of the Decembrist movement, such as Kondraty Ryleev, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, and Fyodor Glinka, Wang traces the development of "emotional communities" among the members and adjacent writers. This book illuminates what Wang terms "civic sentimentalism": the belief that cultivating noble sentiments on an individual level was the key to liberal progress for Russian society, a core part of Decembrist ideology that constituted a key difference from their thought and Pushkin's. The emotional program for Decembrist community members was, in other ways, a civic program for Russia as a whole, one that they strove to enact by any means necessary.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration and Dates

Introduction

1. Emotional Communities in the Age of Pushkin

2. Love and Friendship in Decembrist Lyrics

3. Russia's Radical Byron: Reexamining the "Decembrist Pushkin"

4. Ryleev, Pushkin, and the Poeticization of Russian History

5. Civic Sentimentalism after Prison and Exile: Glinka and Batenkov

Coda: Civic Sentimentalism and the Decembrist Legacy in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9780299345839

0299345831

OCLC:

1396063807