Vicissitudes of genre in the Russian novel

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The 1860s witnessed one of the most vibrant periods in the history of modern Russian literature. This book focuses on what was arguably its most influential genre – the Russian tendentious novel. While tracing the genre’s early development through works such as Fathers and Sons and Notes from Underground, it simultaneously unfolds a unique approach to reading late-nineteenth-century Russian literature by showing how rich conflicting interpretations of the classics continue to be possible and by indicating numerous deep-rooted connections between the tendentious novels of the nineteenth century and their twentieth-century literary progeny.