Russian Twentieth Century Short Story

Lyudmila Parts (Ph.D. Columbia University) is an associate professor at the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at McGill University. Her book The Chekhovian Intertext: Dialogue with a Classic (2008) explores the intersection of intertextuality, cultural memory, and cultural myth. She has published articles on Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstaya, Petrushevskaya, P'etsukh, and Pelevin.

"Parts (Russian, McGill University) brings together an international group of scholars for an analysis of the Russian short story in the twentieth century. She considers first if there is something particular about the character Russian short story but leaves the reader to decide. The essays discuss writers well known in the West, such as Chekhov, Nabokov and Pasternak along with those not yet recognized outside Russia: Andrei Platonov, Yury Olesha, Isaak Babel, Abram Tertz, Vasili Shukshin, Varlan Shamalov, Tatiana Tolstaia, Lyudmila Petrushevskaia, Victor Erofeev, Andrei Bitov and Viktor Pelevin. One chapter is a translation of a story by Petrushevskaia. Some of the essays place the stories within Communist or pre-revolutionary society. Others are seen as a reflection of universal emotions. The themes of memory, childhood and loss appear often in the stories chosen for commentary. The authors speculate on whether there is a difference in the way these are treated by the Russian writers. This is an interesting study of both Russian writers and the form of the short story itself."

• Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction: The Short Story as the Genre of Cultural Transition. LYUDMILA PARTS. Chekhov’s “The Darling”: Femininity Scorned and Desired. SVETLANA EVDOKIMOVA. Bunin’s “Gentle Breath.” LEV VYGOTSKY. Ekphrasis in Isaak Babel (“Pan Apolek,”“My First Goose”). ROBERT MAGUIRE. Zoshchenko’s “Electrician,” or the Complex Theatrical Mechanism. ALEKSANDER ZHOLKOVSKY.Yury Olesha’s Three Ages of Man: A Close Reading of “Liompa.” ANDREW BARRATT. Nabokov’s Art of Memory: Recollected Emotion in “Spring in Fialta” (1936-1947). JOHN BURT FOSTER, JR. Child Perspective: Tradition and Experiment. An Analysis of “The Childhood of Lovers” by Boris Pasternak. FIONA BJORLING. Andrei Platonov and the Inadmissibility of Desire (“The River Potudan”). ERIC NAIMAN. “This Could Have Been Foreseen”: Kharms’s “The Old Woman” (Starukha) Revisited. A Collective Analysis. ROBIN MILNER-GULLAND. Testimony as Art: Varlam Shalamov’s “Condensed Milk.” LEONA TOKER. The Writer as Criminal: Abram Tertz’s “Pkhents.” CATHARINE THEIMER NEPOMNYASHCHY. Vasilii Shukshin’s “Cut Down to Size” (Srezal) and the Question of Transition. DIANE IGNASHEVNEMEC. Carnivalization of the Short Story Genre and the Künstlernovelle: Tatiana Tolstaia’s “The Poet and the Muse.”, ERICA GREBER. Down the Intertextual Lane: Petrushevskaia, Chekhov, Tolstoy (“The Lady With the Dogs”)., LYUDMILA PARTS. “The Lady with the Dogs,” by Lyudmila Petrushevskaia. Translated by Krystyna Anna Steiger. Russian Postmodernist Fiction and Mythologies of History: Viacheslav Pietsukh’s “The Central-Ermolaevo War” and Viktor Erofeev’s “Parakeet.” MARK LIPOVETSKY. Psychosis and Photography: Andrei Bitov’s “Pushkin’s Photograph.” SVEN SPIEKER. The “Traditional Postmodernism” of Viktor Pelevin’s Short Story “Nika.” OLGA BOGDANOVA.