Reformulating Russia: The Cultural and Intellectual Historiography of Russian First-Wave Émigré Writers(7 Russian History and Culture)

Georgii Fedotov’s Saints of Ancient Russia, Georgii Florovskii’s The Ways of Russian Theology, Nikolai Berdiaev’s The Russian Idea and Vasilii Zenkovskii’s History of Russian Philosophy—these are among the most well-known and widely-read historical studies of Russian thought and culture. Having left their homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution, these four authors aimed to present their readers with a common past and thus with a common identity, and their historical works emerged out of the need for reorientation in a post-revolutionary, émigré situation. At the same time, they were to elaborate highly contrasting versions of the Russian past. By means of in-depth narrative and contextual analyses, Reformulating Russia provides a detailed examination of the visions of Russia contained in these four works.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Transliterations and Abbreviations Introduction Texts and Contexts Historiography and Narrativity Research PART ONE - CONTEXTS Chapter One Russia Abroad The Émigré Community Exile as Mission Chapter Two Writing Russian History Varieties of Intellectual History Culture and Cultural History Historiography of Imperial Russia PART TWO - READINGS Chapter Three Georgii Fedotov and the Saints of Ancient Russia Culture, Creativity, Tragedy Resurrecting Russian Sanctity Configuring Russian Holiness Fedotov’s Ancient and Holy Russia Detail and Meaning in Russian Holiness The Workers in the Vineyard From Negative to Positive Liberty Difference and Opposition Fedotov’s Tragedy Fedotov’s Historicism Chapter Four Georgii Florovskii and the Ways of Russian Theology Emigration, Eurasianism and Orthodoxy Florovskii’s Prophetic Eschatology The Pseudomorphosis of Russian Thought Gradual Recovery and New Excitements Florovskii’s Theology of Creativity The Ascetic Way Home Chapter Five Nikolai Berdiaev and the Russian Idea Revolution and Exile Berdiaev’s Paradoxes and Inconsistencies The Russian Idea or the Idea of Russia? Chaotic Essentialism Russians as Schismatics The Martyrology of the Intelligentsia Russian Ideas as Ideas of Russia Berdiaev’s Messianism Chapter Six Vasilii Zenkovskii and the History of Russian Philosophy Russia and Europe The Historiography of Philosophy Reframing Russian Philosophy Philosophy and its Soil Philosophy as a System Vladimir Solovev as a Systematic Philosopher The Systematic Design and its Content The Dialectics of History Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Kåre Johan Mjør (b. 1973) holds a Ph.D. from the University of Bergen, Norway. The author of Desire, Death, and Imitation: Narrative Patterns in the Late Tolstoy (Slavica Bergensia 4), he has also published articles on Russian imperial historiography and Russian post-Soviet intellectual culture.

Review :
"Reformulating Russia is designed for specialists in Russian intellectual history. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of religious studies. A well-conceived and well-researched volume." Paul Valliere, Butler University Indianapolis, in Slavic Review 72.1, pp. 181-182 "An original feature of Mjør's work is the emphasis he places on narrative as a cognitive tool for constructing a meaningful and coherent past. Mjør contends that in order to explore how histroy is conceived, it is as important to study the narrative, the rhetoric and form, as it is to analyze teh content." Frances Nethercott, St Andrews, in Kritika 15.2, pp 421-439 "Mjør's Reformulating Russia is a provocative, unique effort to place four unconventional voices into first-wave Russian émigré historiography. The book is a welcome invitation to reconsider whose analyses defined history in Russia Abroad and how these analyses shifted after decades of Soviet power." Krista Sigler, Cincinnati, in East Central Europe 41.1, pp 123-126