In a private conversation on his deathbed, Rudolf Steiner informed his friend Count Polzer-Hoditz of three spiritual problems that would need to be resolved in the coming years: ‘Firstly, the question of the two Johns [John the Baptist and John the Evangelist]. Secondly: Who was Dmitri? Thirdly: Where did Caspar Hauser come from?’ Tackling these issues, said Steiner, would be of critical importance for humanity’s future. He added: ‘In all three problems it is important that one’s gaze is directed not towards death but towards birth. Where did they come from and with what tasks?’ In Dmitri’s case, Steiner emphasized that the most important thing was to discover what was to have been achieved through him. Utilizing the significant clues left by Rudolf Steiner, Sergei O. Prokofieff takes on the second of these tasks, the great unsolved mystery of Russian history. Tsarevich Dmitri, the son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was tragically murdered as a young boy. Later, he was impersonated by a series of rogues and pretenders. Prokofieff’s wide-ranging study integrates historical, psychological and spiritual-scientific perspectives to work towards the truth behind Dmitri’s brief life, his mission and the distortions created by the ‘false Dmitris’. He also examines the significance of Friedrich Schiller’s unfinished play, Demetrius.

‘The primary task of this book is to build a bridge to a deeper understanding of Schiller himself who, along with Goethe and Novalis, was one of the great spiritual forerunners and trailblazers of anthroposophy.’ – Sergei O. Prokofieff Planned as the second volume in a trilogy on Novalis, Schiller and Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and the Future of Freedom is much more than a conventional biography. Prokofieff shines new light on Schiller’s character and destiny, helping to establish his position as a crucial antecedent to Rudolf Steiner in the spiritual history of humanity. He also defines Schiller’s task in the context of the achievements of Goethe and Novalis at the end of the eighteenth century, an extraordinary period that saw a seminal transformation in the philosophical and artistic landscape. Following the recent publication of The Riddle of Dmitri – which explores Schiller’s unfinished drama Demetrius – Prokofieff returns here to the theme in the framework of Schiller’s life and extensive body of work. In timely fashion, he conveys Schiller’s mediating role between Central and Eastern Europe, indicating how he came ‘near to the soul of the Russian people through an idealism imbued with his entirely self-created moral power and his fiery enthusiasm for everything in the world that is true, beautiful and good’.

"Schwarz's study is chock full of judicious evaluation of characters, narrative devices, ethical commentary, and helpful information about historical and political contexts including the role of Napoleon, the rise of capitalism, trains, class divisions, transformation of rural life, and the struggle to define human values in a period characterized by debates between and among rationalism, spiritualism, and determinism. One experiences the pleasure of watching a master critic as he re-reads, savors, and passes on his hard-won wisdom about how we as humans read and why. Daniel Morris, Professor of English, Purdue University Written by one of literature's most esteemed scholars and critics, Reading the European Novel to 1900 is an engaging and in-depth examination of major works of the European novel from Cervantes' Don Quixote to Zola's Germinal. In Daniel R. Schwarz's inimitable style, which balances formal and historical criticism in precise, readable prose, this book offers close readings of individual texts with attention to each one's cultural and canonical context. Major texts that he discusses: Cervantes' Don Quixote; Stendhal's The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma; Balzac's Père Goriot; Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education; Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov; Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina; and Zola's Germinal. Schwarz examines the history and evolution of the novel during this period and defines each author's aesthetic, cultural, political, and historical significance. Incorporating important pedagogical suggestions and the latest research, this text provides accessible and lucid discussion of the European novel to 1900 for students, teachers, and general readers interested in the evolution of the novelistic form.

Dalkey Archive Press’s favorite writer of them all. “Myths do not flow through the pipes of history,” writes Viktor Shklovsky, “they change and splinter, they contrast and refute one another. The similar turns out to be dissimilar.” Published in Moscow in 1970 and appearing in English translation for the first time, Bowstring is a seminal work, in which Shklovsky redefines estrangement (ostranenie) as a device of the literary comparatist—the “person out of place,” who has turned up in a period where he does not belong and who must search for meaning with a strained sensibility. As Shklovsky experiments with different genres, employing a technique of textual montage, he mixes autobiography, biography, memoir, history, and literary criticism in a book that boldly refutes mechanical repetition, mediocrity, and cultural parochialism in the name of art that dares to be different and innovative. Bowstring is a brilliant and provocative book that spares no one in its unapologetic project to free art from conventionality.

‘And however paradoxical it may seem today, the “Grail mood” is in the fullest sense to be found in Russia. And the future role that Russia will play in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch... rests firmly upon this unconquerable “Grail mood” in the Russian people.’ – Rudolf Steiner Although Eastern Europe has been part of the Christian world for more than a thousand years, its spiritual identity remains a mystery. This mystery, says Sergei Prokofieff, can only fully be solved by looking behind external events and seeking spiritual – meta-historical – dimensions of reality. In illuminating the maya of outer history, Prokofieff reveals the forces that have been at work to hinder the progress of mankind: the materialistic Brotherhoods of the West and the occult aspects of both Jesuitism and Bolshevism. These adversary groups have created a ‘karma of materialism’, that the eastern Slavic peoples have taken upon themselves out of their ‘exalted willingness for sacrifice’. Prokofieff shows how, from the earliest times, the future ‘conscience of humanity’ flowed from hidden mystery centres in Hibernia, to the eastern Slavic peoples. As a result, qualities of ‘compassion, patience and willingness for sacrifice’ developed in their souls, creating a truly Christian ‘Grail mood’. Despite incalculable suffering – from the persecutions of the Mongol hordes to the Bolshevik experiment of the last century – this quality has become an unconquerable force. Will humanity be able to use the present opportunity granted by this sacrifice to fulfil the primary purposes of the present cultural epoch? Can the future mysteries of the Holy Grail be fulfilled? In this momentous work, breathtaking in its scope and detail, the author attempts a truly esoteric approach, penetrating to the spiritual wellsprings of Eastern Europe in the light of Rudolf Steiner’s research.

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists of all-time, Fyodor Dostoevsky continues to inspire and instigate questions about religion, philosophy, and literature. However, there has been a neglect looking at his political thought: its philosophical and religious foundations, its role in nineteenth-century Europe, and its relevance for us today. Dostoevsky’s Political Thought explores Dostoevsky’s political thought in his fictional and nonfictional works with contributions from scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and Russian Studies. From a variety of perspectives, these scholars contribute to a greater understanding of Dostoevsky not only as a political thinker but also as a writer, philosopher, and religious thinker.

Drawing on cutting-edge scientific research, classic personality theories, and stirring examples from biography and literature, The Person presents a lively and integrative introduction to the science of personality psychology. Author, Dan McAdams, organizes the field according to a broad conceptual perspective that has emerged in personality psychology over the past 10 years. According to this perspective, personality is made up of three levels of psychological individuality - dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations (such as motives and goals), and integrative life stories. Traits, adaptations, and stories comprise the three most recognizable variations on psychological human nature, grounded in the human evolutionary heritage and situated in cultural and historical context. The fifth edition of this beautifully written text expands and updates research on the neuroscience of personality traits and introduces new material on personality disorders, evolution and religion, attachment in adulthood, continuity and change in personality over the life course, and the development of narrative identity.