Popular literature, fiction and songs in Russia

Connect to Popular literature, fiction and songs in Russia via Direct Connection

About this resource

"The colorful cheap stories and songbooks that flooded Russia during the last half century of the old regime exemplify the richness of the Russian popular imagination. The literature of the lubok, named for the prints that circulated in the same milieu, was a ubiquitous expression of popular taste. The collection illustrates the chief genres of Russian popular literature and includes chivalric tales, historical fiction and updated fairy tales, as well as stories of adventure, banditry, detectives, success, war and empire, women and gender. The collection also includes rags-to-riches tales of social mobility, adventures set in Siberia and the Caucasus, and the stories of the occult world of wizards and sorceresses. Taken together, these lively texts illustrate changing stereotypes of gender, ethnicity, and social class. Their authors also invoke historical memory, celebrating notable personages and eras of interest to their readers. From popular songs to fairy tales and war stories, the collection follows the evolution of the Russian language in its popular commercial print form, an evolution that the Bolsheviks interrupted, but one that has now resumed. Among the remarkable titles is the complete text of Russia's first truly popular novel, N. I. Pastukhov's Bandit Churkin (1883-84), which counted Anton Chekhov among its thousands of readers. Here too are original and later versions of the classic early nineteenth-century chivalric tales, such as the adventures of Bova Korolevich, a story noted by Belinsky, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. The collection also includes tales about Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, the Cossack rebels Sten'ka Razin and Pugachev, and heroes of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the War with Japan, and World War I ... The collection features popular versions of well-known folktales such as The Story of Ivan the Tsar's Son, the Grey Wolf, and the Firebird, made famous by Stravinsky. Songbooks, with titles such as The Stoker (1915), Marusia Loved Her Friend (1910), and Marusia Poisoned Herself (1915) typify the changing oral culture in which printed texts became the standard for popular songs."--Background information page.

• Data Format:

Subject headings