When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917

by Jeffrey Brooks

With a new introduction that underscores the book's relevance to a post-Soviet Russia, When Russia Learned to Read addresses the issue of Russia's common heritage with the liberal democratic market societies of Western Europe and the United States. Jeffrey Brooks brings out the characteristically Russian aspect of the nation's popular writing as he ranges through chapbooks, detective stories, newspaper serials, and women's fiction, tracing the emergence of secular, rational, and cosmopolitan values along with newly minted notions of individual initiative and talent. He shows how crude popular tales and serials of the era find their echoes in the literary themes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and other great Russian writers, as well as the current renaissance of Russian detective stories and thrillers.

Genres: Russia, History, Nonfiction

472 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1988

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done Jeffrey Brooks, well done.