Empty Vessels: Literature as Parodic Bureaucracy in 'The History of a City'

• In Event: The History of Historical Fiction: Karamzin, Pushkin, Saltykov-Shchedrin

Abstract

Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The History of a City is typically read as a satire of actually existing Russian history, framed by the conventions of the Primary Chronicle. Shchedrin’s literary parodies and polemics within the work, however, complicate this picture. By analyzing the motivations behind Shchedrin’s manipulations of Pushkin and Gogol, which inform the specifics of Shchedrin’s textual pose as a historian, I argue that The History of a City not only critiques the abuses of the Russian Empire, but also focuses on the role Russian belle-lettres plays in this historical process, that of supplying ideological justifications.

Author

• Gabriel Nussbaum, Princeton U