Turgenev's novel about conflicting ideas, social classes and generations questions human nature and man's place in the universe. This is one in a series offering a critical analysis of Russian texts and surveying the different interpretations that have been suggested.

Evgenii Zamiatin's seminal antiutopian satire "We" (written 1920-1) is one of the most celebrated works of twentieth century Russian literature. Set one thousand years in the future, it is a witty yet terrifying picture of a future society in which reason is all-conquering and mankind has been enslaved by a dictator called 'the benefactor'. This new study presents both a synthesis of existing criticism and a new reading of the novel. The first section deals with "We" in the context of the Russian Civil War, showing how Zamiatin's contemporaries interpreted it as a satire on life in Soviet...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was an unknown author until the publication of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962, the book that was to win him the Nobel Prize in 1970. It is an account of a barely literate Russian peasant's surviving a single day in one of Stalin's labour camps. It depicted the intricacies and resilience of the human spirit in a style comparable with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. This study gauges the political and literary impact that the book has made in Russia and abroad, and examines its more universal, intrinsic qualities.

One of Pushkin's most famous works, "Eugene Onegin" has been called an "enclyclopaedia of Russian life," a definition which suggests the mass of ideas, impressions, thoughts and possibilities to be found in the story of the doomed love of two members of Russian high society in the 1830s. This study aims to offer an up-to-date guide to the text and to the critical debate, as well as providing easy-to-follow "readings." It takes a fresh look at its themes, ideas and intricacies, and suggests how scholars and non-specialists alike may gain greater understanding of Pushkin's work.

This indispensible text can justly be regarded as the forerunner to the great flowering of Dostoevsky's novels which was to follow. The first part of this unusual work is often treated as a philosophical text in its own right; the second part illustrates the theory of the first by means of its own fictional practice. At the same time, the reader is introduced to the phenomenon of the 'Underground Man', one of the first genuine anti-heroes in European literature.