Short Russian Fiction: 19th Century

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

The nineteenth-century Russian novel had its start in a period of short fiction; it ended in another one. When Tolstoy was preparing to write Anna Karenina, he reread Pushkin’s tales. Dostoevsky’s characters have roots in Lermontov’s fiction. The Russian novelists also wrote short works. This course focuses on the stories and tales of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and others. It covers the nineteenth century and may extend a few years in either direction, to the beginning of modern Russian fiction in the late eighteenth century and to the prerevolutionary years of the early twentieth century.