Late and Post-Soviet Russian Literature

Mark Lipovetsky's remarkable study makes a critical intervention in the study of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian culture. Recent scholarship has made great strides in overcoming the binary categories that once characterized accounts of Soviet society-in different ways-in both the USSR and the West: official vs. unofficial, conformist vs. dissident, socialist bloc vs. the capitalist west, etc. As works in history, anthropology and sociology have begun to show, life in the Soviet Union was painted in shades of grey, admitting a huge range of economic behaviors, social interactions, and political values located "between and betwixt." With this book, in one brilliant stroke, Lipovetsky has brought home these insights with regard to the study of Soviet literature and culture. The figure of the trickster, which Lipovetsky finds across an enormous range of important, canonical and beloved works, was at once the embodiment of socialist values and a subversive, concretizing the special forms of identity and social skills required for survival in the Soviet Union. This study shows us in a new manner what was distinctive about Soviet social and cultural history and in what ways it should be seen as a variety of the common story of modernity. Further, it explores how the cultural life of present day Russia has inherited these structures and patterns. Lipovetsky's erudition is vast, his critical acumen is impressive, and his writing is superbly nuanced and exciting. In short, this is an impressive addition to scholarship.