Family Novel Variations: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

How did Russian realist authors adapt and transgress the generic patterns that they gleaned from Western European family novels, and from one another? This panel explores three models. Anna Berman looks at how Russian authors avoided the sibling incest obsession of the English, while honoring the intense power of the first-family bond. Her paper examines Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s use of the sibling bond as a model for romantic relations and the pattern of falling in love with one who is “like” kin, tracing its roots in the wider European tradition. Katya Jordan’s paper measures the distance between 'Fathers and Children' (1862) —known for its examination of a generational conflict that appears to end in reconciliation — and Turgenev’s other major works. Unlike 'Fathers and Children,' his other novels often feature characters (especially women) who either make little attempt to engage with a preceding generation, or leave their ideological differences unresolved. The paper focuses on how these tendencies are reflected in Turgenev’s final novel, 'The Virgin Soil' (1877), and identifies the trajectory that leads to the protagonist’s suicide. Chloë Kitzinger’s paper considers Dostoevsky’s Karamazov brothers (1879-80) as a reimagining of Konstantin Levin’s family in Tolstoy’s 'Anna Karenina' (1875-77). Incorporating Dostoevsky’s comments on 'Anna Karenina' in ‘Diary of a Writer,' she reexamines the contrasts and parallels between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky through the lens of these two similarly-structured families. Together, the papers offer a new look at the dialogue about the Russian family that Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky each helped radically recast.

Sub Unit

• Literature: Russian and Eurasian

Chair

• Kate Rowan Holland, U of Toronto (Canada)

Papers

• Incest and the Limits of Family in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel - Anna A. Berman, McGill U (Canada)

• Turgenev’s Fatherless Children - Katya Jordan, Brigham Young U

• Brothers (Karamazov) - Chloe Kitzinger, Rutgers, The State U of New Jersey

Discussant

• Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis U