by Amanda Ewington
Northwestern University Press, 2010
eISBN: 978-0-8101-6481-9 | Cloth: 978-0-8101-2696-1
Library of Congress Classification PG3318.Z9E95 2010
Dewey Decimal Classification 891.78209

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ABOUT THIS BOOK



In A Voltaire for Russia, Amanda Ewington examines the tumultuous literary career of Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov in relation to that of his slightly older French contemporary, Voltaire. Although largely unknown in the English-speaking world, Sumarokov was one of the founding fathers of modern Russian literature, renowned in his own time as a great playwright and prolific


poet.


A Voltaire for Russia polemicizes with long-accepted readings of Sumarokov as an imitator of French neoclassical poets, ultimately questioning the very notion of a Russian “classicism.” Ewington uncovers Sumarokov’s poignantly personal devotion to Voltaire as a new framework for understanding not only his works but also his literary allegiances and agenda, as he sets out to establish a Russian literature and cultivate a reading public.





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