by Magnus Ljunggren (Author)
n this volume, Professor Ljunggren introduces the Symbolists and their feverish expectations in detail. Theirs was a time when, for a brief moment everything seemed possible. Then came the rude awakening, best described in Bely's powerful prose masterpiece, 'Petersburg, ' which serves as the connective thread and recurrent point of reference throughout this collection. Written in the early 1910s, just before the world war that was to culminate in the so-called October Revolution, Bely's novel portrays the collective experience of the Symbolists as an attempted political parricide. Many of the essays included in this volume are appearing in English for the first time.
Author Biography
Magnus Ljunggren defended his doctoral thesis The Dream of Rebirth. A Study of Andrej Belyj's novel 'Peterburg' at Stockholm University in 1982. He is presently Professor Emeritus of Russian Language and Literature at the University of Gothenburg. His most important monograph is The Russian Mephisto (1994).