Classics of Russian Literature | The Many Colors of Russian Literature (Lecture 36)

Lecture 36: In the course of these lectures, we have come a considerable way together: We have traveled over 1,000 years, from early Kiev in the 9th century through the Soviet Union of the 20th century. We have seen how the early adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, together with the continuation of the pre-Christian oral Slavic tradition, existed side by side in the 10th through the 12th centuries in the territory around Kiev. We then skipped forward to the early 19th century and saw how these disparate traditions came together in the Golden Age of Russian Literature. After consideration of the various trends manifest in the most famous period of Russian literature, we then moved forward to the 20th century and the era of Soviet culture. As we looked at the central issues of the literature that came out of the USSR, we saw how Russian literature redirected its notions about the eternal questions. And now we can look back on the territory traversed, hoping that these considerations and descriptions will help us to think ever more deeply about ourselves and the world, spurred on by the stimulus of Russian literature.

Suggested Reading:
Edward J. Brown, Literature Since the Revolution.
D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature, edited by Francis J. Whitfield.
Charles Moser, ed., Cambridge History of Russian Literature.