'Who Goes There?': Late Imperial Russian Crime Fiction and Identity

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers IV: Literary and Other Crimes and Cons

Abstract

Like all iterations of the genre, late imperial Russian crime fiction functioned as a reliable barometer of the issues preoccupying society at the time. Just as the first examples had echoed the changes introduced by Aleksandr II’s ‘Great Reforms’, so later works of crime fiction reflected the period of repression that followed his assassination in 1881. In particular, writers found the genre of the crime novel to be an effective vehicle to examine questions of national and ethnic identity, seemingly in response to Aleksandr III’s policy of ‘Russification’. This paper will consider the portrayal of non-Orthodox characters, especially Jewish characters, in Aleksandra Sokolova’s novel Бездна (1890) and Kapitolina Nazar’eva’s Мститель (1894). It will examine how the authors’ crime fiction interrogates issues related not only to religious and ethnic identity, but also how these questions intersect with other aspects of social marginalisation, particularly those associated with gender and class.

Author

• Claire Whitehead, U of St. Andrews (UK)