Agony and the revival of romanticism. Waistff M.

Romanticism in Russian literature, contrary to the thesis of the school curriculum, is a phenomenon that is not at all exhausted by artistic experiments of the early 19th century. Mikhail Weiskf - the Israeli Slavist and the author of the study “Demiurge in love”, which served as a final incentive for this book - sees in romance the enduring foundation of Russian culture, its fatal and at the same time life -giving metaphysical experience. His book covers the centenary period from the end of the romantic Golden Age in the 1840s to the 1940s, when the catastrophes of the 20th century broke the life and literary fate of the last Russian romantics in a wide range from Bulgakov to Mandelstam.

The first part of the work is focused on the analysis of the literary situation of the first half of the 19th century, the second is devoted to the work of Athanasius Fet, the third studies the various modifications of romanticism in the pre-establishment and Soviet years, and the fourth proposes to look at the pre-war work of Vladimir Nabokov. The application of the book is a “missing letter” - seven small stories and stylizations written by the author.