In Russian history, the twentieth century was an era of
unprecedented, radical transformations - changes in social systems,
political regimes, and economic structures. A number of distinctive
literary schools emerged, each with their own voice, specific
artistic character, and ideological background. As a single-volume
compendium, the Companion provides a new perspective on Russian
literary and cultural development, as it unifies both émigré
literature and literature written in Russia. This volume
concentrates on broad, complex, and diverse sources - from
symbolism and revolutionary avant-garde writings to Stalinist,
post-Stalinist, and post-Soviet prose, poetry, drama, and émigré
literature, with forays into film, theatre, and literary policies,
institutions and theories. The contributors present recent
scholarship on historical and cultural contexts of
twentieth-century literary development, and situate the most
influential individual authors within these contexts, including
Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, Osip
Mandelstam, Mikhail Bulgakov and Anna Akhmatova.
· An overview of writing in Russia, with coverage of all major
authors, works and literary schools · Explains the cultural,
historical and theoretical contexts of the literature · Includes
further reading suggestions and a chronology