Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) was a poet firmly embedded in tradition, not a radical innovator but always aware of his predecessors and alert to ways of adapting and improving the models they provided. The exception that proves the rule is the Onegin stanza, the only instance in all of Pushkin’s oeuvre where he created his own stanzaic form. He did so for his unprecedented ‘novel in verse’ Eugene Onegin (Evgenii Onegin), widely considered the cornerstone of the Russian literary tradition. Composed from 1823 to 1831 and published serially between 1825 and 1832, the work is marked by sudden shifts in theme, character, setting, and mood.

The chronology of the Baroque age in Russian culture is contested, but by the broadest definition it can be located in the second half of the seventeenth century and approximately the first third of the eighteenth century. The emergence of the Baroque tends to coincide with the emergence of the court as a focus and patron. General features include a greater prominence of individuality (even originality), a greater emphasis on entertainment as one function and purpose of literary production, and a highlighting of performative verbal and formal devices. This chapter explores two types of literary production that particularly exemplify aspects of the Baroque mode: parody and satire, and syllabic verse. As a case-study in the latter, the chapter introduces a cycle of poems by the most prominent and prolific Baroque versifier, and arguably Moscow’s first professional writer of literature, Simeon Polotskii.

The Tale of Igor’s Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve) is a literary text that has acquired emblematic significance far beyond literature, in discourses of cultural and national identity in both Russia and Ukraine. It is short, fewer than ten pages of modern printed text, yet its status is incalculable. Its subject is not, on the surface, a hugely consequential event: a failed foray against the steppe nomads in 1185 led by a minor prince of the Rus ruling family, Igor Sviatoslavich of Novgorod-Seversk. Yet in the lyrical imagination, the episode acquires almost cosmic resonance. In the densely metaphorical narrative, nature itself participates and responds. Rus princes and nomad chieftains are falcons and wild oxen, skies darken, lances sing, rivers are invoked as if people, and the fingers of a bard are falcons descending upon swans.

A substantial proportion of medieval texts consists of other texts. Form therefore needs to be understood on at least two levels, by distinguishing between what can be termed ‘composite’ forms and ‘constituent’ forms. Some composite forms are fairly fixed (the Bible is a composite form); others are quite fluid. Genre, in this textual dynamic, is an elusive and contested notion. As illustrative case studies, this chapter considers two types of narrative: chronicle and hagiography. Hagiography is defined by subject (writing about saints), not by form as such. But hagiographic narratives tend to be produced and reproduced in large-scale composite forms organised according to closed annual calendrical cycles, while chronicles are compilations (often compilations of compilations) organised according to open-ended annalistic sequence. Between them these large composite forms contain most of the individual narratives that tend to be extrapolated in modern editions and discussed in modern critical writings, as literary works.

The Introduction outlines key problems of conceptualising and shaping literary history in general, and Russian literary history in particular. It explains the radical decision to structure the volume not as an integrated narrative but as a set of chronologically parallel histories. The Introduction explains the choice of ‘movements’, ‘forms’, ‘mechanisms’, and ‘heroes’ as frameworks for the four main histories, yet also argues that further histories are imaginable, as indicated by the six clusters of smaller essays, or ‘boxes’. As for ‘Russian’: the adjective can refer to language, to geopolitical space, or to cultural and/or national identity. The relationships among these three categories are increasingly contested. Russian Studies have only recently begun to acknowledge and explore the distinctions that are well established for literatures in other imperial languages (for instance, English and Anglophone, French and Francophone). The polyphonic structure of the book facilitates constructive engagement with debates about reshaping the field.

The age of devotion is a descriptive designation for the period commonly labelled medieval, when the majority of literary texts were produced for devotional purposes. In the Russian context this extends roughly to the mid-seventeenth century. This chapter outlines and illustrates three approaches to the study of this literature: synchronic, diachronic, and dynamic. The synchronic approach emphasises features that are broadly characteristic of the age as a whole, such as the religious milieu (Orthodox Christianity), the language of high culture (Church Slavonic, in various interactions with East Slavonic), the medium of transmission (manuscript rather than print), and the problem of authorship (the prevalence of anonymity, the role of the scribe). The diachronic approach has produced various attempts to identify distinct periods in literary development. The dynamic approach emphasises the mutability of literary texts, such that it is necessary to view a work as a field of variously realised textual possibilities.

Vissarion Belinskii (1811–1848) is the most famous and influential literary critic in the history of Russian literature. Despite regular attempts to demonstrate the destructive effect of his ideas, Belinskii’s reputation has proved resilient. Yet the reasons why he remains such an influential figure can be hard to grasp.

Belinskii’s assessments do not always coincide with subsequent views on the literary canon, yet his intuitions could be impressive. For instance, he declared the primacy of Nikolai Gogol in the Russian canon long before Gogol had produced Inspector General (Revizor, 1836), Dead Souls (Mertvye dushi, 1842), or ‘The Overcoat’ (Shinel', 1842). Belinskii also admired the works of the young Mikhail Lermontov, who at the time had published very little. His review of Inspector General determined the main trend in the history of its interpretation, seeing it through a social lens.

Labour camps, known for most of their seven decades by the acronym GULag (Main Administration of Camps), were a defining feature of the Soviet system, and one of its most baleful legacies. Concentrated in peripheral, hostile environments, they showed disregard for human life and health and resulted in mass death and disability. The release of millions from the camps, especially in the amnesties of the early post-Stalin years (1953–6), created a vast network of survivors, with many seeking to testify to their experiences.

Walking down an aisle of a Russian bookstore or library, one sees numerous books with the title Rasskazy i povesti. This common title for an author’s collected works is difficult to translate: it could be ‘short stories and short novels’ or ‘short and long stories’. As these awkward pairings show, the povest' occupies the space between the short story and the novel, both in length and in the scope of its engagement with its subject.