Russia: Its people and its literature

by Emilia Pardo Bazán, Fanny Hale Gardiner

Russia - Its people and its literature is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1890. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres.As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature.Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1887

About the author

Emilia Pardo Bazán was a Galician author and scholar from Galicia. She is known for bringing naturalism to Spanish literature, for her detailed descriptions of reality, and for her role in feminist literature of her era.
Her first novel, Pascual López (1879), is a simple exercise in fantasy of no remarkable promise, though it contains good descriptive passages of romance. It was followed by a more striking story, Un viaje de novios (1881), in which a discreet attempt was made to introduce into Spain the methods of French realism. The book caused a sensation among the literary cliques, and this sensation was increased by the appearance of another naturalistic tale, La tribuna (1885), wherein the influence of Émile Zola is unmistakable. Meanwhile, the writer's reply to her critics was issued under the title of La cuestion palpitante (1883), a clever piece of rhetoric, but of no special value as regards criticism or dialectics.
The best of Emilia Pardo Bazán's work is embodied in Los pazos de Ulloa (1886), the painfully exact history of a decadent aristocratic family. A sequel, with the significant title of La madre naturaleza (1887), marks a further advance in the path of naturalism.
She was also a journalist, essayist and critic. She died in Madrid.

Reviews

[Juan]

Más que un resumen o compendio de literatura o historia política rusa, se pretende (cosa que va explicando la propia autora) dar su "estado intelectual". Hay que entender eso también en su contexto de una dama de la aristocracia espanola de fines del siglo XIX, no faltan argumentaciones racistas, católicas, espirituales y en algunos casos protofascistas, como el elogio de la guerra, cierta defensa de la servidumbre y del catolicismo.
En tal "justificación intelectual" comete errores u omisiones(la autora reconoce saber ruso y no detalla elementos que hoy parecen básicos, cayendo en la tentadora comparación de Ivan El Terrible con Pedro el Cruel) reduce la obra de Gogol al insistir en ubicar como pionero del naturalismo ruso, ignorando los elementos fantásticos de sus narraciones; tampoco se detiene en que la obra inicial de Gogol feu escrita en ucraniano, cultura a la que simplemente ignora o que probablemente desprecia, como desprecia la parte asiática en la explicación de Rusia.
Básicamente, reconociendo su conocimiento menor en el tema (honestidad que se agradece) se centra en las figuras de Pushkin, Turguenev, Tolstoi y Dostoievski, pero bajo ciertos paradigmas preconcebidos: La novela permite explicar el espíritu de la sociedad y esto se observa en Rusia, la utilidad práctica que tendría esto para Espana (sobran referencias a autores espanoles) y la condena al "nihilismo" (cuyo concepto reconoce no definir claramente)finalmente por su caracter laico.... sin embargo, es un interesante (y ameno) testimonio de cómo en aquel momento se veia la desconocida literatura rusa en occidente (reconoce que algunos libros no pudo leerlos completo -Oblomov- por no estar íntegramente traducidos) y cómo éstas se esperaban que dialogaran y eran recibidas al menos por parte de una intelectual espanola del siglo XIX.