The highlight of Russkii vestnik for 1868 was the publication of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, but other notable features are articles by N. A. Liubimov on advances in Physics, Hermann Laroche on Glinka, A. D. Gradovsky on Russian historical literature, and Gustave de Molinari (a regular contributor on European affairs) on the 1867 World Exhibition […]
Russkii vestnik 1868
Posted by Sarah Young on July 25, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/25/russkii-vestnik-1868/
Russkii vestnik 1869
Russkii vestnik was published from 1856 to 1906. Founded by Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov, who edited it until his death in 1887, it became one of the most influential literary-philosophical journals of the second half of the nineteenth century, publishing nearly all the great novels of that period: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 18, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/18/russkii-vestnik-1869/
Russian journals on Google books
There are some amazing resources on Google books, which can really transform the way scholars work and particularly the time spent on locating materials. As a postgrad in the late 1990s, when I wanted to find out about the serial publication of The Idiot, I ended up having to consult the journal in a library […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 16, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/16/russian-journals-on-google-books/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: characters
Re-reading Crime and Punishment hasn’t entirely resolved the perennial problem of Sonia, which I’ve mentioned previously, but I do finally seem to have found a way of accepting her as a character, which makes the novel’s denouement less contentious. Or maybe it’s just that I was focusing on the fine details rather than the big […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 9, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/09/re-reading-crime-and-punishment-characters/
Re-reading Crime and Punishment: Dostoevsky’s spaces
The process of re-reading a novel is simultaneously frustrating and interesting. It’s frustrating because there are too many books out there, and too little time to read them, so returning to ones you’ve already read is always accompanied by a depressing awareness that you’re getting further away from others you’d like to read — I […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 6, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/06/rereading-crime-and-punishment-dostoevskys-spaces/
Porfiry: a poor pastiche
In response to the disappointment I expressed in my review of Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, a reader alerted me (please note: not ‘recommended’) to the existence of a series of crime novels by R. N. Morris set in 19th century St Petersburg, and featuring Porfiry Petrovich. The detective from Crime and Punishment is a […]
Posted by Sarah Young on July 1, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/07/01/porfiry-a-poor-pastiche/
Dostoevsky: not so grim?
The recent stories about the murals at the new Dostoevsky metro station in Moscow, which have led to concerns that it could become a favourite spot for suicides, have made me think about why Dostoevsky is considered such a depressing writer. Is it because he depicts so much poverty and misery? I doubt it, because […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 24, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/24/dostoevsky-not-so-grim/
Women, beauty and other things
The ambiguous treatment of some of Dostoevsky’s major themes was high on the menu in the first session on Thursday. Joe Andrew gave a very interesting paper on the ‘woman question’ in The Brothers Karamazov, discussing how marginalized the female characters are – in the central family grouping there are no mothers, daughters or sisters […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 18, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/18/women-beauty-and-other-things/
The underground man at the International Dostoevsky Symposium
Wednesday was all about Notes from Underground for me. Carol Apollonio’s paper was stunning, probably the highlight of the symposium, and it confirmed my view of her as one of the most original scholars working on Dostoevsky. She examined the use of pronouns in Notes from Underground (specifically ‘I’), but also giving a broader perspective […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 17, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/17/the-underground-man-at-the-international-dostoevsky-symposium/
More news from Naples
Naples is hot and tiring, but there have been some really great papers and discussions today. Probably the best presentation was by Liza Knapp, on the idea of motherhood and intercession for their sinful sons in House of the Dead – a wonderful, thought-provoking conception which opens up that text in all sorts of interesting […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 15, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/15/more-news-from-naples/