Research Catalog

Title

The prose of life : Russian women writers from Khrushchev to Putin / Benjamin M. Sutcliffe.

Author

Sutcliffe, Benjamin M.

Publication

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xi, 211 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

From the publisher: Both before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, everyday life and the domestic sphere served as an ideological battleground, simultaneously threatening Stalinist control and challenging traditional Russian gender norms that had been shaken by the Second World War. The Prose of Life examines how six female authors employed images of daily life to depict women's experience in Russian culture from the 1960s to the present. Byt, a term connoting both the everyday and its many petty problems, is an enduring yet neglected theme in Russian literature: its very ordinariness causes many critics to ignore it. Benjamin Sutcliffe's study is the first sustained examination of how and why everyday life as a literary and philosophical category catalyzed the development of post-Stalinist Russian women's prose, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A focus on the representation of everyday life in women's prose reveals that a first generation of female writers (Natalʹia Baranskaia, Irina Grekova) both legitimated and limited their successors (Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Tatʹiana Tolstaia, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and Svetlana Vasilenko) in their choice of literary topics. The Prose of Life traces the development, and intriguing ruptures, of recent Russian women's prose, becoming a must-read for readers interested in Russian literature and gender studies.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Geschichte 1960-2007
• 1900-2099
• Geschichte 1960-2007
• Russian prose literature > History and criticism
• Women authors, Russian > 20th century > Biography
• Women authors, Russian > 21st century > Biography
• Home in literature

Genre/Form

• collective biographies.
• Biographies
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Biographies.

Note

• "A Mellon Slavic Studies Initiative book"--P. [4] of cover.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-202) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Documenting women's Byt during the thaw and stagnation: Natal'ia Baranskaia and I. Grekova -- Perestroika and the emergence of women's prose: Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Tat'iana Tolstaia, and women's anthologies -- The artistry of everyday life: Liudmila Ulitskaia, Svetlana Vasilenko, and post-Soviet women's anthologies -- Conclusion: cultural divides and the future of women's prose.

ISBN

• 9780299232047 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0299232042 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780299232030 (e-book)
• 0299232034 (e-book)

LCCN

^^2008039543

OCLC

259754284

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library