STEPHEN LOVELL is Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford. He is the author of The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras . ALENA LEDENEVA is Research Fellow of New Hall and Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University. She is the author of Russia's Economy of Favours . ANDREI ROGACHEVSKII is Teaching Assistant at the Department of Slavonic Languages and Literatures, University of Glasgow. He is the author of many articles on Russian literature, history and culture.

'This fascinating collection of articles...offers something for almost everyone...' - Donald Filtzer, Slavic Review

• Preface Notes on the Contributors Introduction; A.Ledeneva, S.Lovell & A.Rogachevskii Payment, Gift or Bribe? Exploring the Boundaries in Pre-Petrine Russia; C.J.Potter Patrimonialism versus Rational Bureaucracy: On the Historical Relativity of Corruption; V.Volkov Bribery and Justice in the Provinces in the Reign of Catherine II: J.Hartley Self-Interested Giving: Bribery and Etiquette in Late Imperial Russia; C.Kelly Bureaucracy on Trial: A Malaise in Official Life as Represented in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought; I.Davydova The Representation of Bribery in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature; A.Rogachevskii Reciprocity and the Soviet Culture Revolution: The Literary Perspective; S.Lovell Blat in Stalin's Time; S.Fitzpatrick Continuity and Change of Blat Practices in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia; A.Ledeneva Bribery as Reflected in the Russian Language; J.A.Dunn Bribery as Reflected in Contemporary Russia; C.Humphrey Attitudes to Bribery and Blat in Contemporary Russian Society: The Psychologist's View; V.Spiridonov Bureaucratic Encounters in Post-Communist Regimes: Evidence from Twenty-Six Focus Groups in the Former Soviet Union and East-Central Europe; W.L.Miller, T.Koshechkina & Å.Grodeland 'Who's the Boss: Us or the Law? The Corrupt Art of Governing Russia; M.Galeotti Index