The Politics of Literary History: Literary Historiography in Russia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Finland after 1990

ISBN-13: 9783031187230 / Angielski / Twarda / 2024 / 404 str.

Liisa Steinby; Benedikts Kalnačs; Mikhail Oshukov

Opis

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.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Historical introduction.- Chapter 2. Academy of Sciences: Definitive literary history.- Chapter 3. Post-Soviet university literary histories: Defining Russianness.- Chapter 4. Literary history and the literary canon in school education: An Orthodox upbringing.- Chapter 5. Introduction: An outline of the political and cultural development of Latvia.- Chapter 6. Latvian literary histories from 1812 to 1940: Popular enlightenment, Romantic nationalism and political independence .- Chapter 7. Soviet Latvia and exile: Political changes in the aftermath of WWII and their impact on Latvian literary histories.- Chapter 8. Literary histories in the period of independence: The 1990s and early twenty-first century.- Chapter 9. Introduction: History, politics, culture and the origins of literary historiography in the Czech Lands till 1918.- Chapter 10. The First Czechoslovak Republic: Literary historiography 1918–1939.- Chapter 11. Literary historiography in the 1950s and early 1960s.- Chapter 12. Politics and policies in literary historiography during the periods of “disobedience” (1963–1969) and “normalization” (1969–1989).- Chapter 13. Literary history since 1989: Directions, attempts at synthesis, challenges.- Chapter 14. Textbooks in literary history.- Chapter 15. Literary histories from mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century: The viewpoint of nationalism.- Chapter 16. The literary history of a welfare state: Kuusi’s literary history.- Chapter 17. Celebrating Finland: Laitinen’s literary history.- Chapter 18. Opening windows towards Europe: The Varpio literary history.- Chapter 19. In defense of poesy: Hallila’s survey of contemporary Finnish literature.- Chapter 20. Swedish-language literature in Finland: From a national to a minority literature.- Chapter 21. Literary history in the schools: From nationalism to cultural varieties.

O autorze

Liisa Steinby is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. Her publications include Myth in the Modern Novel (forthcoming), 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 (forthcoming), and Nordic literature of Decadence (2020). 

Blurb

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.

Liisa Steinby is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku, Finland. Her publications include Myth in the Modern Novel (forthcoming), 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 (forthcoming), and Nordic literature of Decadence (2020).