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

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the evolving genre of historical fiction through works which represent three different forms, contexts, and literary sensibilities: Karamzin’s tales “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter” (1792) and “Marfa the Mayoress” (1803), Pushkin’s narrative poems The Bronze Horseman (1833) and Poltava (1828-29), and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The History of a City (1869-70). By examining the trajectory of historical fiction through the first half of the nineteenth century, this panel aims to address the following questions: what constitutes a work of historical fiction and determines its reception thereas? Is there a literary “history of historical fiction,” and when does historical fiction become legible as a genre with a history? Finally, how can works of this sort construct and or complicate national/imperial myths? We seek to investigate how these three authors reflect on the individual's fraught position in history as subject and narrator by creatively manipulating historical material and sources.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 19th Century

Chair

• Marcos Cisneros, UC Berkeley

Papers

• 'Instead of a Historical Novel, a Romantic History': Karamzin’s Approach to Imaginative History in 'Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter' and 'Marfa the Mayoress' - Emma George, Princeton U

• 'Мне? зачем же нет?': The Individual’s Historical Place in Alexander Pushkin’s 'The Bronze Horseman' and Poltava - Claudia Rose Kelley, Columbia U

• Empty Vessels: Literature as Parodic Bureaucracy in 'The History of a City' - Gabriel Nussbaum, Princeton U

Discussant

• Luba Golburt, UC Berkeley