Writer's life and mission - Empire - Social setting - Peasants - Religion - Crime and punishment - Army - Education - Press and censorship.

This book, first published in 1977, begins with a close look at the lives of nineteenth century Russian writers, and at the problems of their profession. It then examines their environment in its broader aspects, the Russian empire being considered from the point of view of geography, ethnography, economics, and the impact of individual Tsars on writers and society. A discussion of the main social ‘estates’ follows, and concluding is an analysis in their literary context of the activities of the competing forces of cohesion and disruption in imperial society: the civil service, law courts, police, army, schools, universities, press, censorship, revolutionaries and agitators. This book makes possible a fuller understanding of the works of Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and the other great Russian writers.

Most nineteenth-century Russian writers wrote for their own time and their own country. The assumed in their readers an intimate knowledge of imperial Russian life and familiarity with all sorts of detail with which modern students of their work cannot easily acquaint themselves. This background is supplied in systematic format in this book. It begins with a close look at the lives of writers, and the problems of the profession. It then examines their environment in its broader aspects, the Empire being considered from the point of view of geography, ethnography, economics, and the impact of Tsars on writers and society. Next comes a discussion of the main social "estates" -- peasants, landowning gentry, clergy, and townspeople. Finally, the competing forces of cohesion and disruption in imperial society are analyzed in their literary context -- the activities of civil service, law courts, police, army, schools, universities, press, censorship, revolutionaries, and agitators. -- From publisher's description.

Moss has significantly revised his text and bibliography in this second edition to reflect new research findings and controversies on numerous subjects. He has also brought the history up to date by revising the post-Soviet material, which now covers events from the end of 1991 up to the present day. This new edition retains the features of the successful first edition that have made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world.

This new edition retains the features of the first edition that made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world. Moss's accessible history includes full treatment of everyday life, the role of women, rural life, law, religion, literature and art. In addition, it provides many other features that have proven successful, including: a well-organized and clearly written text, references to varying historical perspectives, numerous illustrations and maps, fully updated bibliographies accompanying each chapter as well as a general bibliography, a glossary, and chronological and genealogical lists.

Exploring An t-Oileánach (anglicised as The Islandman), an indigenous Irish-language memoir written by Tomás Ó Criomhthain (Tomás O'Crohan), Máiréad Nic Craith charts the development of Ó Criomhthain as an author; the writing, illustration, and publication of the memoir in Irish; and the reaction to its portrayal of an authentic, Gaelic lifestyle in Ireland. As she probes the appeal of an island fisherman’s century-old life-story to readers in several languages—considering the memoir’s global reception in human, literary and artistic terms—Nic Craith uncovers the indelible marks of Ó Criomhthain’s writing closer to home: the Blasket Island Interpretive Centre, which seeks to institutionalize the experience evoked by the memoir, and a widespread writerly habit amongst the diasporic population of the Island. Through the overlapping frames of literary analysis, archival work, interviews, and ethnographic examination, nostalgia emerges and re-emerges as a central theme, expressed in different ways by the young Irish state, by Irish-American descendants of Blasket Islanders in the US today, by anthropologists, and beyond.