Haunted Empire

Valeria Sobol

Description

Haunted Empire shows that Gothic elements in Russian literature frequently expressed deep-set anxieties about the Russian imperial and national identity.Valeria Sobol argues that the persistent presence of Gothic tropes in the literature of the Russian Empire is a key literary form that enacts deep historical and cultural tensions arising from Russia's idiosyncratic imperial experience. Her book brings together theories of empire and colonialism with close readings of canonical and less-studied literary texts as she explores how Gothic horror arises from the threatening ambiguity of Russia's own past and present, producing the effect Sobol terms "the imperial uncanny." Focusing on two spaces of the imperial uncanny-the Baltic north/Finland and the Ukrainian south-Haunted Empire reconstructs a powerful discursive tradition that reveals the mechanisms of the Russian imperial imagination that are still at work today.

Sujets

• Former Soviet Union
• Post-Soviet states
• Eastern Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501750595
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

HAUNTEDEMPIRE

A volume in the NIU Series in Slavic,EastEuropean,andEurasianStudies Edited by Christine D. Worobec

For a list of books in the series, visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

HAUNTEDEMPIRE฀

GOT HI C AND T HE RUSSI AN I MPE RI AL UNCANNY

Va l e r i a S o b o l

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS AN IMPRINT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS IthacaandLondon

Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sobol, Valeria, author. Title: Haunted empire : Gothic and the Russian imperial uncanny / Valeria Sobol. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Series: NIU series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019050549 (print) | LCCN 2019050550 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501750571 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501750595 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501750588 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Gothic fiction (Literary genre), Russian— History and criticism. | Gothic fiction (Literary genre)— History and criticism. | Ukrainian fiction—History and criticism. | Imperialism in literature. | Uncanny, The (Psychoanalysis), in literature. Classification: LCC PG3098.G68 S63 2020 (print) | LCC PG3098.G68 (ebook) | DDC 891.73/08729—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050549 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2019050550

Cover photograph courtesy of Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Vasily Vereshchagin,sositoehaWrofeApTh, 1871. Oil on canvas, 127 cm. (50 in.) x 197 cm. (77.5 in.).

ToDavid,Nika,andLana

Contents

Acknowledgmentsix NoteonTransliterationandTranslationxi

Introduction. From the Island of Bornholm to Taman′: The Literary Trajectory of the Russian Imperial Uncanny

Pa r t I : Th e N o rt h 1. A Gothic Prelude: Nikolai Karamzin’s “The Island of Bornholm” 2. In Search of the Russian Middle Ages: The Livonian Tales of the 1820s 3. “Gloomy Finland” and Russian Gothic Tales of Assimilation

Pa r t I I : Th e S o u t h 4.Ukraine: Russia’s Uncanny Double 5. On Mimicry and Ukrainians: Empire and the Gothic in Antonii Pogorel′sky’s TheConventGraduate 6. ’Tis Eighty Years Since: Panteleimon Kulish’s Gothic Ukraine Afterword

Notes 139 Works Cited Index191

177

1

27

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109 135

Acknowledgments

This project was several years in the making, and I am indebted to many institutions and individuals for their support. The sabbatical leave granted by the University of Illinois back in 2012 enabled me to conduct preliminary research in my native Kyiv and to outline the scope of this book. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded this project both a summer stipend and a year-long fellowship, which allowed me to conduct additional research in Moscow and to spend an entire year work- ing exclusively on this book. The University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study’s appointment provided me with an additional semester of invaluable teaching release, while the Campus Research Board award and an Interna- tional Program and Studies Travel Research Grant, also at the University of Illinois, further supported my research for this project. I want to thank my former and current colleagues at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who have responded to parts of this book at its various stages or simply offered their collegiality and friendship on a daily basis: Laura Davies Brenier, Michael Finke, George Gasyna, Roman Ivashkiv, Lilya Kaganovsky, Harriet Murav, Richard Tempest, Gene Avrutin, Diane Koenker, John Randolph, Mark Steinberg, Craig Koslofsky, Laurie Johnson, and Anke Pinkert. I am grateful to the late Nancy Abelmann who, in her capacity as the then associate vice chancellor for research, helped me not only create a successful grant proposal but also shape this book in a more meaningful way. The University of Illinois Slavic Reference Service provided me with prompt access to any materials I requested, whether I was over- seas or at home, in Urbana—thank you, Joe Lenkart. I also thank my gradu- ate research assistants—Irina Avkhimovich, Serenity Stanton Orengo, and LeiAnna Hamel—for their conscientious work. I am indebted to the invaluable advice and expertise of my colleagues in the field, with whom I have collaborated on publications and confer- ence panels related to nineteenth-century Russian prose, Gothic literature, empire, and Ukrainian studies or who have supported my work on this book in other ways: Katherine Bowers, Nancy Condee, Alexander Etkind,

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