The Books of My Life: Russian Literature (Wachtel and Vinitsky)

One of the loves of my life has been literature, particularly Russian literature. Andrew Baruch Wachtel and Ilya Vinitsky argue in their Russian Literature (Cambridge, Eng., Polity, Cultural History of Literature series, 2009) that there are two broad ways to approach a national literary tradition. The first is the traditional approach which explores the internal development of a literary tradition and concentrates on single authors. The second is the cultural approach which puts art--literature, poetry, theatre, art music, opera, ballet, painting, architecture, and sculpture into its broader environmental--national and international--cultural and social contexts.

It is the latter approach that Wachtel and Vinitsky take in their superb book, Russian Literature. By taking this broad approach, however, Wachter and Vinitsky do not ignore the internal development of Russian literature from the Kievan Rus period to the 21st century, a literary tradition which, along with art in general in Russia and the Soviet Union, was at the heart of questions associated with Russian and Soviet identity and Russian and Soviet social issues. Each chapter, which is largely chronological, puts Russian literature in its broader cultural and social contexts by exploring a key author of the era, a key literary work of the era, and a key event of the era. By taking this approach Wachtel and Vinitsky are able, through the microcosm of key authors, key works, and key events, to get at the macro level of Russian literature and Russian culture.

There is a lot to admire in Wachtel's and Vinitsky's book. I liked how they put culture or meaning at the heart of their analysis of Russian literature. I appreciated how they explored the cultural messianism, apocalypticism, and exceptionalism at the heart of Russian and Soviet culture and literature, a messianism, apocalypticism, and exceptionalism that is hardly a monopoly of Russia and the USSR and which can also be found in American culture, Canadian culture, Australian culture, Kiwi culture, and Israeli culture. to pick but a few of many examples. I liked how they showed interconnections between European cultural and artistic movements and those in Russia and the USSR and vice versa. I appreciated their ability to explore how broader economic and political factors affected Russian culture, art, and literature. I liked their often incisive analysis of Russian and Soviet art and literary works. Their discussion of Andrey Platonov's Kotlovan (English translation: Foundation Pit), for instance, was fascinating and made a lot of sense. I greatly appreciated that they moved beyond the manichean rhetoric of so much romantic Western Sovietology of good outsiders and bad insiders in the post-Thaw USSR by recognising that there were insiders, outsiders, insider-outsiders, and outsider-insiders in the Soviet Russian art community.

I can't recommend Wachtel's and Vinitsky's book more highly. This is one of the best books I have ever read on Western culture, Western art, Western literature, Russian culture, Russian art, and Russian literature. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in any of these subjects and in culture and culture theory in general.