Russian life and literature of the nineteenth century abounded with scenes of gambling - nowhere more prominently than in the lives and work of three of Russia's greatest writers: Aleksandr Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Fedor Dostoevsky. Focusing on the intersection of gambling performances in society and in literature, this book reveals the significance of gambling as an index of character in nineteenth-century Russia. During the reigns of Aleksandr I and Nicholas I, Ian Helfant argues, gambling became an essential proving-ground and symbolic locus for noble identity in Russia - a way for the...
Russian life and literature of the nineteenth century abounded with scenes of gambling - nowhere more prominently than in the lives and work of three ...
