Margaret Ziolkowski is professor of Russian at Miami University (Ohio). She has worked on topics in Russian literature ranging from the medieval to the contemporary.

• PrefaceChapter 1: Tampering with the Folkloric Evidence: Famous and Infamous European PrecedentsChapter 2: Oral Composition: Early Russian Observations and AssumptionsChapter 3: Engaging with the Folk in Pre-Revolutionary RussiaChapter 4: The Making of the NovinyChapter 5: The Poetics and Politics of the NovinyChapter 6: Devaluing the NovinyChapter 7: Late and Post-Soviet Folkloristic Assessment of the NovinyConclusionSelected BibliographyAbout the Author

The present volume looks at the study and collection of Soviet epic songs from the 1930s and 1940s; these songs were called noviny, following in the tradition of the Russian epic bylyny songs of the past. The majority of the book summarizes and analyzes the politics and methodologies among folklorists compiling and interpreting bylyny and noviny from the pre-revolutionary period to the late- and post-Soviet eras. Chapter 1 provides a history of folklore in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe; chapters 2, 3, and 4 are devoted to the theory and practice behind the gathering of folklore in the pre-revolutionary and Stalinist periods. In chapter 5, the author looks at the poetics and politics of the noviny; it will be most useful to those interested in concrete examples from Soviet heroic poetry. Ziokowski asserts that the bylyny represent a diverse collection of narratives with varied concerns and argues that the diversity of these folk poems was especially neglected in the early twentieth century in favor of a patriotic Soviet narrative. Through a close reading of selections from different noviny in chapter 5, the author demonstrates how poetics and politics operated together at the textual level of the poems. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.