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The Politics of Literary History

Literary Historiography in Russia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland after 1990

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  • © 2024

Overview

Editors:
  1. Liisa Steinby

    1. Department of Comparative Literature University of Turku, Turku, Finland

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  2. Benedikts Kalnačs

    1. Institute of Literature, Folklore and Arts University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

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  3. Mikhail Oshukov

    1. Department of English Petrozavodsk University, Petrozavodsk, Russia

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  4. Viola Parente-Čapková

    1. Department of Finnish Literature University of Turku, Turku, Finland

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  • Shows the dependence of literary historiography from a founding ideology
  • Discusses nationalism, in various forms, and communism as background ideologies
  • Reveals the different developments in literary historiography in Russia, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Finland

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Table of contents (22 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction

    • Liisa Steinby
    Pages 1-44

  3. Literary Historiography in Russia After 1990: From a Liberal Search for New Openings Back to the Idea of Russia

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-45
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    2. Historical Introduction

      • Mikhail Oshukov
      Pages 47-52

    3. Academy of Sciences: Definitive Literary History

      • Mikhail Oshukov
      Pages 53-79

    4. Post-Soviet University Literary Histories: Defining Russianness

      • Mikhail Oshukov
      Pages 81-114

    5. Literary History and the Literary Canon in School Education: An Orthodox Upbringing

      • Mikhail Oshukov
      Pages 115-138

  4. Latvian Literature as an Ideologically and Politically Contested Terrain: Literary Historiography Between Foreign Rule, Nationalism, and Comparative Perspectives

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139
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    2. Introduction: An Outline of the Political and Cultural Development of Latvia

      • Māra Grudule, Benedikts Kalnačs
      Pages 141-153

    3. Latvian Literary Histories from 1812 to 1940: Popular Enlightenment, Romantic Nationalism, and Political Independence

      • Māra Grudule, Benedikts Kalnačs
      Pages 155-172

    4. Soviet Latvia and Exile: Political Changes in the Aftermath of WWII and Their Impact on Latvian Literary Histories

      • Māra Grudule, Benedikts Kalnačs
      Pages 173-195

    5. Literary Histories in the Period of Independence: The 1990s and Early Twenty-First Century

      • Māra Grudule, Benedikts Kalnačs
      Pages 197-212

  5. Politics of Literary History in the Czech Lands

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 213-213
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    2. Introduction: History, Politics, Culture and the Origins of Literary Historiography in the Czech Lands till 1918

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 215-228

    3. The First Czechoslovak Republic: Literary Historiography 1918–1939

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 229-247

    4. Literary Historiography in the 1950s and Early 1960s

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 249-262

    5. Politics and Policies in Literary Historiography During the Periods of “Disobedience” (1963–1969) and “Normalization” (1969–1989)

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 263-271

    6. Literary History Since 1989: Directions, Attempts at Synthesis, Challenges

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 273-290

    7. Textbooks in Literary History

      • Libuše Heczková, Viola Parente-Čapková
      Pages 291-298

  6. Finland: From Nation-building in Two Languages Towards a European Identity

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 299-299
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Keywords

About this book

This book looks at literary historiography in Russia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland, focusing on how seismic shifts in state politics and ideology after 1990 changed the writing of national literary histories in these countries. While Russia saw a return to a more nationalist way of thinking about literature and a new emphasis on Orthodox religion after the fall of the Soviet Union, the opposite is true for Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland. In these countries, literary historiography fosters connections between Western scholarship and literatures written in the national language and engages with questions such as transnationalism, minorities, culture and power, and the cultural construction of identities. This book scrutinizes the different ways in which the construction of national, cultural and European identities has occurred in and through the literary historiography of North-Eastern Europe in the last few decades.


Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Comparative Literature University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Liisa Steinby

  • Institute of Literature, Folklore and Arts University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Benedikts Kalnačs

  • Department of English Petrozavodsk University, Petrozavodsk, Russia

    Mikhail Oshukov

  • Department of Finnish Literature University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Viola Parente-Čapková

About the editors

Liisa Steinby is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. Her publications include Myth in the Modern Novel: Imagining the Absolute (2023), co-edited volumes Narrative Concepts in the Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature (2017), and Herder and the Nineteenth Century (2020).


Benedikts Kalnačs is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Liepāja, Latvia. His publications include A New History of Latvian Literature: The Long Nineteenth Century (ed., with Pauls Daija, 2022).


Mikhail Oshukov is Assistant Professor at Petrozavodsk State University, Russia. His publications include the articles "Ezra Pound’s Dramatic Works: Vorticist Noh Theater" (2019), "E.E. Cummings: geometry and grammar of revolution" (2017), and "Familiar Otherness: Peculiarities of dialogue in Ezra Pound’s poetics of inclusion" (2013).


Viola Parente-Čapková is Professor of Finnish Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. Her publications include co-edited volumes Women Writing Intimate Spaces: The Long 19th Century at the Fringes of Europe (2023), and Nordic literature of Decadence (2020). 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Politics of Literary History

  • Book Subtitle: Literary Historiography in Russia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland after 1990

  • Editors: Liisa Steinby, Benedikts Kalnačs, Mikhail Oshukov, Viola Parente-Čapková

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18724-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18723-0Published: 08 February 2024

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18726-1Due: 10 March 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-18724-7Published: 07 February 2024

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 408

  • Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, European Literature, Russian, Soviet, and East European History

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