The Positive Hero In Russian Literature
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
What does it mean to be a hero in a society that demands ideological conformity? Rufus W. Mathewson Jr.'s The Positive Hero in Russian Literature presents a rigorous and penetrating study of one of the most enduring archetypes in Russian literary tradition — the morally exemplary figure constructed to embody the values of the state — tracing its evolution from the reformist ideals of the nineteenth century through the rigid dictates of Soviet Socialist Realism. Drawing on a sweeping canon of Russian prose, Mathewson chronicles how writers from Turgenev and Chernyshevsky to Gorky and the Soviet novelists of the Stalin era shaped, subverted, and were ultimately constrained by the demand to produce ideologically positive characters, illustrating the profound tension between authentic artistic vision and political obligation. This second edition, published by Stanford University Press, remains a landmark work of Slavic literary scholarship, celebrated for its analytical precision and its ability to situate individual texts within the broader sweep of Russian intellectual and political history. Mathewson argues with quiet authority that the positive hero is not merely a literary convention but a barometer of the relationship between the artist and the state — a relationship marked by coercion, compromise, and occasional courageous resistance. For anyone seeking to understand how totalitarian ideology inscribes itself into the very grammar of narrative, this study raises questions that resonate far beyond the borders of Russia.
Author: Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr.
Format: Hardback
Published: 1975, Stanford University Press
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
What does it mean to be a hero in a society that demands ideological conformity? Rufus W. Mathewson Jr.'s The Positive Hero in Russian Literature presents a rigorous and penetrating study of one of the most enduring archetypes in Russian literary tradition — the morally exemplary figure constructed to embody the values of the state — tracing its evolution from the reformist ideals of the nineteenth century through the rigid dictates of Soviet Socialist Realism. Drawing on a sweeping canon of Russian prose, Mathewson chronicles how writers from Turgenev and Chernyshevsky to Gorky and the Soviet novelists of the Stalin era shaped, subverted, and were ultimately constrained by the demand to produce ideologically positive characters, illustrating the profound tension between authentic artistic vision and political obligation. This second edition, published by Stanford University Press, remains a landmark work of Slavic literary scholarship, celebrated for its analytical precision and its ability to situate individual texts within the broader sweep of Russian intellectual and political history. Mathewson argues with quiet authority that the positive hero is not merely a literary convention but a barometer of the relationship between the artist and the state — a relationship marked by coercion, compromise, and occasional courageous resistance. For anyone seeking to understand how totalitarian ideology inscribes itself into the very grammar of narrative, this study raises questions that resonate far beyond the borders of Russia.