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The dialog with nihilism in Russian polemical novels of the 1860s-1870s

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This dissertation examines the development of the polemical Russian novel concerning the <&ldquo>hero of the time</&rdquo> during the 1860s<&ndash>1870s when the problem of nihilism was literature'...

This dissertation examines the development of the polemical Russian novel concerning the <&ldquo>hero of the time</&rdquo> during the 1860s<&ndash>1870s when the problem of nihilism was literature's main concern. Most novels written during this era participated in the debate on nihilism and discussed the vitality and potential of the new <&ldquo>hero of the time,</&rdquo> the nihilist (or <&ldquo>new man</&rdquo>). This study examines the genesis of the literary images of the nihilist <&ldquo>heroes of the time;</&rdquo> it also explicates the connections between these works and illustrates common influences upon writers. This thesis reveals the extent to which the conversation about nihilism in Russian culture was many-voiced and contradictory; debate carried on not only on the pages of novels, articles in the <&ldquo>thick</&rdquo> journals, and newspapers, but also in everyday life and behavior, in fashion and linguistic usage, in personal interactions and in political trials. The debate over nihilism was more complex than previously assumed in literary scholarship, and this dissertation provides a detailed reconstruction of the process by which polemical novels of the time came into being. Novels analyzed in this dissertation include <&mdash> apart from the works by Turgenev, Chernyshevsky and Dostoevsky <&mdash> writing frequently overlooked by such novelists as Leskov, Pisemsky and Goncharov, as well as a broad range of fiction by minor writers, such as Avseenko, Kliushnikov, Kushchevsky, Sleptsov, Orlovsky, Markevich and others. The authors discussed in this study cover a wide spectrum of literary craftsmanship and ideological agendas. Through a close reading of these works, the dissertation aims to provide an archeology of nihilist themes and writings and to reveal their sources and origins in other publications. The study of minor novels by secondary authors highlights the <&ldquo>median literary norms of the epoch</&rdquo> (Lotman) and helps reconstruct the bigger picture of the development of the polemical novel, at the same time serving as a necessary prelude for more sophisticated readings of the politics and poetics of the great works by Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Goncharov and other writers who engaged with nihilism.

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