Book Cover
E-book
Author Kelly, Catriona

Title Refining Russia : advice literature, polite culture, and gender from Catherine to Yeltsin / Catriona Kelly
Published Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001

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Description 1 online resource (xliv, 438 pages) : illustrations, portraits
Series OUP E-Books
Summary Advice literature (etiquette manuals, guides to hygiene and house management, and treatises on upbringing) enjoyed massive popularity in Russia between the late eighteenth and the late twentieth centuries. It reflected changing attitudes to appropriate behaviour in private and public, to the acquisition of possessions, and not least to national identity (for many Russians, reading how-to books was seen as a way of 'learning how to be a Westerner'). Written or translated by members of the cultural elite trying to encourage what they saw as civilized behaviour, advice literature was also a conduit for changing views of mass readers and of their place in society. This important and engaging book is the first systematic exploration of this hitherto neglected genre of popular printed text. It examines the evolution of advice literature from the Enlightenment to the post-Soviet era, from translations of Fenelon and Madame de Lambert in the 1760s and of Samuel Smiles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to tracts by Gogol and Tolstoi, Soviet pamphlets on 'how to be cultured', and post-Soviet guides to 'window treatments'.; It draws on a huge range of sources - memoirs, 'novelised conduct books' such as Anna Karenina, parody advice literature, letters, and reviews - to examine the broader significance of how-to books, and their relationship with daily life (byt) as construct and as lived reality. The result is a book that not only makes a major contribution to the study of popular culture, but also throws an unexpected and revealing light on Russian history more broadly
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Notes English text with parallel English and Russian extracts
Print version record
Subject Etiquette -- Russia -- History
Didactic literature, Russian -- History and criticism
REFERENCE.
HEALTH & FITNESS -- Beauty & Grooming.
Didactic literature, Russian
Etiquette
Manners and customs
Etiquette.
Huishouden.
Lezen.
Handleidingen.
Manners & Customs.
Anthropology.
Social Sciences.
SUBJECT Russia (Federation) -- Social life and customs
Subject Russia
Russia (Federation)
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2001275935
ISBN 1423785770
9781423785774
128044486X
9781280444869
9786610444861
6610444862
9780198159872
0198159870