Who Is to Blame?

Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor of Russian Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of The Literary Ballad in Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature and Dreams and the Unconscious in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. Katz is also translator of many books, including The Five, Sanin, and What Is to Be Done? also from Cornell. Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor of Russian Studies at Middlebury College. He is the author of The Literary Ballad in Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature and Dreams and the Unconscious in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction. Katz is also translator of many books, including The Five, Sanin, and What Is to Be Done? also from Cornell.

"Herzen's only novel is as much a social document as a fiction, since the many characters personify the major issues and types of the time. . . . Herzen's humorous and ironic development of plot and character suggests an answer to the title question: all are to blame for the injustice and aimlessness of Russian life."—Library Journal