David M. Bethea

The Shape of Apolacypse in Modern Russian Fiction

Princeton University Press 1991

Stron XIX+307, format: 16x24 cm

Książka jest nowa, ale ma zagięty dolny róg okładki.

Contents

A Note on the Transliteration                                                                  xi

Preface                                                                                                       xiii

Introduction: Myth, History, Plot, Steed                                                3

one         The Idiot: Historicism Arrives at the Station                                        62

two       Petersburg: The Apocalyptic Horseman, the Unicorn, and

the Verticality of Narrative                                                                     105

three     Chevengur: On the Road with the Bolshevik Utopia                        145

four      The Master and Margarita: History as Hippodrome                        186

five        Doctor Zhivago: The Revolution and the Red Crosse

Knight                                                                                                      230

Afterword: The End and Beyond                                                         269

Works Cited                                                                                            277

Index                                                                                                         297

"It is not often one comes across a book that is not only a major contribution to the field, but whose appearance calls for a celebration. David Bethea's The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction is such a book."
—Laura D. Weeks, The Russian Review
"The terrifying enormity of the apocalyptic theme in Russian literature
fails to daunt Bethea, author of the acclaimed Khodasevich. His present
book is brilliant, elegantly presented, and invaluable to anyone from under-
graduate to specialist."    —Choice
"Bethea sees as his tasks: (1) to trace the theme of the Apocalypse ... in five Russian novels: Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Bely's Petersburg, Platonov's Chevengur, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, and Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago; (2) to show how generalizations about the time-honored 'messi­anic' and 'eschatological' impulse in the Russian historical character shed light on the narrative structure of these works; and (3) to demonstrate that 'apocalyptic fictions' . . . countermand Socialist realism and its vision of secular paradise. He does an excellent job with all three."
—Thomas Gaiton Marullo, Modern Fiction Studies
"This is precisely where the strength of [Bethea's] book lies: the 'shape of
apocalypse' is not superimposed upon the texts, but emerges from them,
and the analytical method itself is a model of close, nondoctrinaire
exegesis."    —Jane Grayson, The Slavonic Review
". . . Bethea's study is excellent for its range, its depth, its authority with the Russian language, and, most of all, for its faithful rendering, through five complex literary works, of a culture's history."
—Dennis Patrick Slattery, Christianity and Literature
David M. Bethea is Professor of Slavic Languages at the University of Wis­consin. He is the author of Khodasevich: His Life and Art (Princeton).