405 – Introduction to Russian Literature

With so much well-deserved attention on Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov) and Tolstoi (War and Peace, Anna Karenina), it could be surmised that these two authors created Russian literature! But before them, a dashing, ill-fated poet named Alexander Pushkin set Russian literature afire, especially with Eugene Onegin, Russia’s most significant novel. Other writers took up the mantel, particularly the astute storyteller Ivan Turgenev who penned Fathers and Sons, arguably the best story of inter-generational conflict, contrasting the patriots of the Napoleonic Era with their indulged sons steeped in nihilistic Romanticism. As we read and connect these two works, we will walk with Pushkin and Turgenev through the languid meadows of Russia’s countryside as well as the glittering streets of St. Petersburg, seeking a literary understanding of the nineteenth-century “Russian soul.”