Early Modern Russian Letters

Marcus Levitt (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1984) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Southern California. Dr. Levitt is known for both his work on eighteenth-century Russian culture and on Pushkin. Major publications include: Russian Literary Politics and the Pushkin Celebration of 1880 (Cornell University Press 1989), Early Modern Russian Writers, Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, (Volume 150) in the series The Dictionary of Literary Biography (1995; Editor and contributor) and Making Russia Visible: The Status of the Visual in Eighteenth-century Russian Literature (forthcoming).

• ForewordPart One: SUMAROKOV AND THE LITERARY PROCESS OF HIS TIMEPreface1 Sumarokov: Life and Works2 Sumarokov’s Reading at the Academy of Sciences Library3 Censorship and Provocation: The Publishing History of Sumarokov’s “Two Epistles”4 Slander, Polemic, Criticism: Trediakovskii’s “Letter from a Friend to a Friend” of 1750 and the Problem of Creating Russian Literary Criticism5 Sumarokov’s Russianized “Hamlet”: Texts and Contexts6 Sumarokov’s Drama “The Hermit”: On the Generic and Intellectual Sources of Russian Classicism7 “The First Russian Ballet”: Sumarokov’s “Sanctuary of Virtue” (1759) Defining a New Dance8 Was Sumarokov a Lockean Sensualist? On Locke’s Reception in Eighteenth-Century Russia9 Barkoviana and Russian Classicism10 The Illegal Staging of Sumarokov’s Sinav and Truvor in 1770 and the Problem of Authorial Status in Eighteenth-Century Russia11 Sumarokov and the Unified Poetry Book: His Triumphal Odes and Love Elegies Through the Prism of Tradition12 The Barbarians among Us, or Sumarokov’s Views on OrthographyEarly Modern Russian Letters: Part Two: VISUALITY AND ORTHODOXY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN CULTUREPreface13 The Rapprochement between “Secular” and “Religious” in Mid to Late Eighteenth-Century Russian Culture14 The “Obviousness” of the Truth in Eighteenth-Century Russian Thought15 The Theological Context of Lomonosov’s “Evening” and “Morning Meditations on God’s Majesty”16 The Ode as Revelation: On the Orthodox Theological Context of Lomonosov’s Odes17 An Antidote to Nervous Juice: Catherine the Great’s Debate with Chappe d’Auteroche over Russian Culture18 The Polemic with Rousseau over Gender and Sociability in ESUrusova’s Polion (1774)19 Virtue Must Advertise: Self Presentation in Dashkova’s Memoirs20 The Dialectic of Vision in Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to MoscowSources

"Professor Marcus Levitt, a leading scholar of eighteenth-century Russian literature, crowns years spent studying poet and playwright Alexander Sumarokov with a new collection of articles, some now made available in English for the first time. Containing a series of engaging essays on various aspects of Sumarokov’s oeuvre together with a variety of other studies concerning Russian culture, literature, history and philosophy, this volume will serve as an indispensable guide to all those studying eighteenth-century Russia for many years to come."