Both critics and admirers of Tolstoy's great novel were shocked by the savage iconoclasm of his What is Art? when it appeared in 1898. How was it that this great artist could condemn the works of Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven and even his own Anna Karenina as 'false art'? Today's reader still has to grapple with that paradox. The essay still has power to challenge and provoke, for it was written by a giant who took art seriously while western civilisation toyed with it as a mere pastime. For Tolstoy, art was as natural and as necessary for humankind as speech.
In his...
Both critics and admirers of Tolstoy's great novel were shocked by the savage iconoclasm of his What is Art? when it appeared in 1898. How w...
Nikolay Novikov (1744 1818) was a key figure in Russian cultural life under Catherine the Great. He was in turn a successful journalist, historiographer, educator, publisher, leading freemason and philanthropist and he left his distinctive mark on each of these spheres at a formative moment in Russia. This book is a Western study of Novikov's complete career and it shows how he responded to Catherine's enlightened despotism in cultural matters and why their ways eventually parted. Novikov is viewed here not only as a founding father of the Russian intelligentsia, but as a representative of...
Nikolay Novikov (1744 1818) was a key figure in Russian cultural life under Catherine the Great. He was in turn a successful journalist, historiograph...
