Realism in Ruins: Representations of Tsaritsynoin Nineteenth-Century Russia

• In Event: Masks of Reality: The Many Faces of Russian Realism

Abstract

This paper examines visual and textual representations of the palace-turned-ruin Tsaritsyno from the mid-nineteenth century. Taking Ivan Turgenev's novel On the Eve (1860) as my primary focus, I approach the abandoned summer palace as an index of Russian historical consciousness, one that registers the growing desire for political agency as well as the unshakeable feeling of political paralysis that gripped the empire's educated class. In so doing, I consider Russian Realism in its struggles to represent the remnants of the eighteenth century and confront the legacy of the Russian Enlightenment.
 
 

Author

• Graham Weaver, New York U