For Humanity's Sake: The Bildungsroman in Russian Culture

For Humanity s Sake is the first study in English to trace the genealogy of the classic Russian novel, highlighting the role of education in shaping Russian cultural identity and the influence of Apollon Grigor ev's cultural vision on the creative explosion of the 1860s and 1870s.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 294 pages
Publication date: 01 April 2021
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

For Humanity s Sake is a groundbreaking study in English that traces the genealogy of the classic Russian novel, from Pushkin to Tolstoy to Dostoevsky. Lina Steiner's insightful analysis reveals how these writers shared a deep concern for individual and national education, which played a crucial role in shaping a distinctive Russian cultural identity. Steiner highlights the significant role of the critic Apollon Grigor'ev in defining the difference between Western European and Russian conceptions of national education, known as Bildung, which he attributed to Russia's unique sociopolitical conditions, geographic breadth, and cultural heterogeneity. Grigor'ev's cultural vision served as a catalyst for the creative explosion that produced Russia's most famous novels of the 1860s and 1870s. By positioning the classic Russian novel as an inheritor of the Enlightenment's key values, including humanity, self-perfection, and cross-cultural communication, For Humanity's Sake offers a unique perspective on Russian intellectual history and literature.

Weight: 420g
Dimension: 226 x 150 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781487541828