Creating the Empress

Vera J. Proskurina (Ph.D., Moscow State University) is a lecturer in Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures department at Emory University. She is the author of two books and sixty articles on Russian literature and the intellectual history of Russia. Her first book, Mikhail Gershenzon: his Life and Myth (1998) was devoted to the Jewish Russian writer and thinker of the first decades of the 20th century. Her second book, Myths of Empire: Politics and Literature in the Time of Catherine II, first appeared in Moscow in 2006.

“The volume includes careful analyses of contemporary sources as well as of the poetry, prose, and journalism of the 18th century. Highly recommended.”— A. J. DeBlasio, Dickinson College, in CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July 2011“The strength of Proskurina’s work lies in its detailed analysis of a wide range of Russian literary works from this period, particularly in highlighting the frequent use of Classical subjects or genres by authors to discuss the symbolic or analogous content of their writings. Similarly, she draws on an impressive range of English and Russian language scholarship to emphasize the need to view these Classical themes and motifs in the context of wider European symbolic traditions, as well as the immediate historical context of Catherine II’s reign.”— Paul Keenan, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science, in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol 10 (2009)