Consciousness, Memory, and History in Tolstoy’s War and Peace
The Second Epilogue Although nearly all have admired Tolstoy’s War and Peace since its publication, critics have been divided over whether the novel has an organizational principle.…
The Politics and Experience of Active Love in The Brothers Karamazov
Early reception of The Brothers Karamazov ranged from praise to condemnation, with most of the criticism and debate focused on Book V’s The Tale of the Grand…
Fathers and Sons: The Principle of Love in Turgenev’s Liberalism
The importance of place is often neglected by liberal theorists, with the assumption that liberal ideas are understood and articulated in the same manner from one society…
The Russian Empire Timeline (1721-1917)
1682 Brothers Ivan V and Peter I crowned czars 1695-1700 War with Ottoman Empire 1696 Ivan V dies, leaving Peter I as the sole czar 1696-97 Peter’s…
Putin’s Russia: Power and Postmodernity
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice. Bill Browder. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns…
Mikhail Shishkin’s Maidenhair: God of Life
On first reading, Maidenhair stymies the reader, but in a good way for it challenges the reader to engage itself. Since Maidenhair is like a whirling merry-go-round…
Russian Political Symbols, Culture, and Civil Society
The promise of order and justice after the collapse of the Soviet Union has not been fulfilled in Putin’s Russia, with no political symbol emerging for her…
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as Writer, Philosopher, and Political Thinker
The Other Solzhenitsyn. Daniel J. Mahoney. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2014. Daniel J. Mahoney’s The Other Solzhenitsyn is a much needed reappraisal of the…
The Antinomies of Dostoevsky’s Political Thought
Dostoevsky's Political Thought. Richard Avramenko and Lee Trepanier, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. Sainte Russie. Alain Besançon. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 2012. Dostoevsky’s Political Thought is a…
Dostoevsky’s Heroines; Or, On the Compassion of the Russian Woman
Readers of Dostoevsky’s political novels recognize well that he is engaged in pitched battle against the West for the spiritual direction of Russia and his Russian brethren.…
The Master and Margarita: Satire and Transcendence
A Novel of Resistance Mikhail Bulgakov took a long time to settle on the title for his last great work, The Master and Margarita. In the years…
Justice and the Western Perception of Dostoevsky
As Seen in the Films of Woody Allen Every reading necessarily involves a misreading.1 This is true especially in the case of Fyodor Dostoevsky and has even…
The Ugliness of Intellectual Fraud
Soviet Politics: At Home and Abroad. Frederick L. Schuman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. Professor Schuman has written a comprehensive volume on Soviet politics that…
The Collapse of Communism
Autopsy of an Evil Empire Let us be done with muddling explanations for the collapse of socialism and admit that it fell because the poetry of personal…
Orwell, Dostoevsky, Flaubert: Obsession and Cruelty
You speak in your letter of a change in dramatic style from expressionist morality to a new realism represented by Dürrenmatt and Frisch. As I am not…