A Study Guide to Russian Culture

QUANTITIES ARE LIMITED

This handbook is designed for students studying a course on Russian Culture, and on the elementary level. It is assumed that the students in this course have little or no information on Russian culture, nor any sophisticated grasp of the elements of what is sometimes called as "Capital C" culture, that is the artistic creations of a people, namely, their music, art and literature. This course will focus primarily on the literature of the Russian people, but will, in addition, try to show how this literature arose out of the same cultural context as Russian painting, sculpture, architecture and music.

This handbook is not designed as primer on Russian history or geography, and the student is requested to consult books which go into greater depths on these subjects. This book will attempt to provide an outline of key events, but not go into any lengths to explain or interpret them.  The works in this book have been translated by different writers and therefore translations vary from one work to the next.

The works under study will be explored in two ways, in terms of context and in terms of artistic merit or what has been called form by various scholars of the arts.

Content will explore matters of historical content, the social setting presented in the work, the philosophical, political, social and other issues discussed, particularly if there is something "Russian" about them.

Artistic Merit will explore the reasons why a particular work is artistic, that is, the kinds of artistic devices used in it, innovations, uses of the Russian language (insofar as this is possible to communicate in the English language), forms of narrative, melody, harmony, texture and whatever else makes the work worthy to be studied.

George Kalbouss

1991, 7" x 10", paper, 345 pp.

ISBN: 9780536580399

111-K8039