Other Russian nineteenth-century literatures: introduction

This introduction provides an overview of discussions of canonicity in nineteenth-century Russian literary studies against the backdrop of the war on Ukraine. It considers definitions of “minorness” and approaches to studying lesser-known authors in the broader context of nineteenth-century European literary studies. It then outlines the thematic parameters of the articles included in the issue. Articles collected here examine authors and aesthetic approaches that have not fitted the dominant narratives of nineteenth-century Russian literary history, either as they were conceived of contemporaneously or in later codifications (poetry in a prose era, historical fiction and science fiction, literature by women, European models for the Russian novel). Essays also describe the processes by which writers have been obscured in literary history, and the significance of their work. As a whole, the special issue highlights the breadth and richness of nineteenth-century literature beyond the canon, and reveals how different this period begins to look – less exceptional in the broader European context, less male-dominated, but even more aesthetically experimental – when a greater proportion of scholarly attention is turned to minor writers, genres, and forms.