A nation astray : nomadism and national identity in Russian literature / Ingrid Kleespies.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kleespies, Ingrid, author.

Series:

NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Karamzin, Nikolaĭ Mikhaĭlovich, 1766-1826. Pisʹma russkogo puteshestvennika.

Karamzin, Nikolaĭ Mikhaĭlovich.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881. Zimnie zametki o letnikh vpechatlenii︠a︡kh.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.

Chaadaev, P. I︠A︡. (Petr I︠A︡kovlevich), 1794-1856. Lettres philosophiques.

Chaadaev, P. I︠A︡.

Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich, 1812-1891--Criticism and interpretation.

Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich.

Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, 1799-1837--Criticism and interpretation.

Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich.

Herzen, Aleksandr, 1812-1870--Criticism and interpretation.

Herzen, Aleksandr.

Russian literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Russian literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (pages )

Place of Publication:

DeKalb, Illinois : Northern Illinois University Press, [2012]

Summary:

The metaphor of the nomad may at first seem surprising for Russia given its history of serfdom, travel restrictions, and strict social hierarchy. But as the imperial center struggled to tame a vast territory with ever-expanding borders, ideas of mobility, motion, travel, wandering, and homelessness came to constitute important elements in the discourse about national identity. For Russians of the nineteenth century national identity was anything but stable.This rootlessness is at the core of A Nation Astray. Here, Ingrid Anne Kleespies traces the image of the nomad and its relationship to Russian national identity through the debates and discussion of literary works by seminal writers like Karamzin, Pushkin, Chaadaev, Goncharov, and Dostoevsky. Appealing to students of Russian Romanticism, nationhood, and identity, as well as general readers interested in exile and displacement as elements of the human condition, this interdisciplinary work illuminates the historical and philosophical underpinnings of a basic aspect of Russian self-determination: the nomadic constitution of the Russian nation.

Contents:

Tracing the topos of the eternal Russian traveler: Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveler and Dostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions

Chaadaev's Wayward Russia: capturing the trace of an errant history

A poet astray: Pushkin and the image of a nomadic wanderer

"A journey around the world by I. Oblomov": Goncharov's unlikely eternal Russian traveler

A radical at large: Alexander Herzen and the autobiography of a Russian wanderer.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781501756689

1501756680

9781609090760

1609090764

OCLC:

868026645