Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation

The chapters in this volume consider gender and sexuality as phenomena informing the post-Petrine modern phase of Russian civilisation, offering a balance of interpretive, analytical and theoretical writings. While each is of interest as a separate study of history, art, folklore, philosophy or literature, the contributions are methodically united and arranged into groups according to the sequence of arguments they develop, Gender and Power, Gender and National Identity, Sexual Identity and Artistic Impression, Literary Discourse of Male and Female Sexualities, Sexuality and Literature in Contemporary Russian Society. Even though pre-Petrine Russia, the Soviet and the post-Soviet periods are considered specifically in several of the essays, the book chiefly highlights the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: these periods-while extensively scrutinised in traditional scholarships-have to date received insufficient attention in cultural and gender studies.