Russian literature and empire
Subtitle: conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy
By: Susan Layton.
Series: Cambridge studies in Russian literature
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
Subjects: Russian literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Romanticism -- Russia.; Caucasus -- In literature.; Orient -- In literature.; Russia -- Relations -- Caucasus.; Caucasus -- Relations -- Russia.
Description: This is the first book to provide a synthesizing study of Russian writing about the Caucasus during the nineteenth-century age of empire-building. From Pushkin's ambivalent portrayal of an alpine Circassia to Tolstoy's condemnation of tsarist aggression against Muslim tribes in Hadji Murat, the literary analysis is firmly set in its historical context, and the responses of the Russian readership to receive extensive attention.

As well as exploring literature as such, Susan Layton introduces material from travelogues, oriental studies, ethnography, memoirs, and the utterances of tsarist officials and military commanders. While showing how literature often underwrote imperialism, the book carefully explores the tensions between the Russian state's ideology of a European mission to civilize the Muslim mountain peoples, and romantic perceptions of those tribes as noble primitives whose extermination was no cause for celebration.

By dealing with imperialism in Georgia as well, the study shows how the varied treatment of the Caucasus in literature helped Russians construct a satisfying identity for themselves as a semi-European, semi-Asian people.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 339-347) and index.