Around 1860 student radicals seized the attention of Russia's government and elite through their "nihilist" attacks on every existing authority, from the liberalism of their parents to the traditional values which supported the autocracy and the Orthodox church. Tolstoy wrote WAR AND PEACE as an indirect response to nihilism, and Turgenev and Dostoevsky responded by making student nihilists the heroes of FATHERS AND CHILDREN, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and THE DEVILS. The Russian novel was elevated to new religious and philosophical heights by its absorption of the nihilists' sense of cultural crisis and thirst for new, absolute values. Readings in Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Tolstoy will be supplemented by selected readings from letters, essays, and biographies, which reflect Russia in the 1860's. |