Literature in Post-Communist Russia and Eastern Europe

The Russian, Czech and Slovak Fiction of the Changes 1988-98

Rajendra Anand Chitnis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134254064
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book considers Russian, Czech and Slovak fiction in the late communist and early post-communist periods. It focuses on the most innovative trend to emerge in this period, on those writers who, during and after the collapse of communism, characterised themselves as 'liberators' of literature. It shows how these writers in their fiction and critical work reacted against the politicisation of literature by Marxist-Leninist and dissident ideologues, rejecting the conventional perception of literature as moral teacher, and redefining the nature and purpose of writing. The book demonstrates how this quest, enacted in the works of these writers, served for many critics and readers as a metaphor for the wider disorientation and crisis precipitated by the collapse of communism.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Author’s note
• Introduction
• 1 The Fiction of the Changes
• 2 Deaths of Authors
• 3 Giving a Shape to One’s Fate
• 4 Subverting Realism
• 5 Writing as Being
• 6 Empty Words
• 7 Learning to Live with Emptiness
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography