Pushkin and His Contemporaries: Selected Essays

This major volume comprises the seminal essays of Russian Formalist Yuri Tynianov (1894–1943) on Pushkin’s artistic development and the evolution of 19th-century Russian poetry. The essays cover a wide range of subjects, centring on Pushkin’s evolution as a poet, but also considering his prose. Tynianov deconstructs the “lone genius” myth and explores the literary and historical context which reveals the social nature of the creative process, in which geniuses do not make their breakthroughs entirely independently from others. Pushkin’s interaction with the wide and varied circle of literary figures provides a deeper understanding of what came to be known as the ‘Pushkin age’. The previously untranslated texts allow for readings of Tynianov’s historical fiction within the context of his scholarly studies, and his creative works as the testing ground for discoveries which were later developed theoretically in his scholarship.