Annotation:

Abram Reitblat is a leading scholar of the historical sociology of Russian literature. In his research, he explores literature as a social institution and focuses on subjects that literary scholars usually overlook: “grassroots” literature; writers not awarded status in the canon of classics; mechanisms in the formation of literary reputation; the establishment of copyright in Russia; writers' fees; interactions between authors, editors, censors, booksellers, etc. This new collection of works by Reitblat includes essays and other writings from 2014–2020. Continuing the line of his previously published studies, the author writes about the social mechanisms of the emergence of literary classics; about the sociology of literary scandal; about rhetorical strategies for justifying serfdom in the first half of the 19th century; and about the relationship of the writer, publisher and journalist Faddei Bulgarin - one of the main figures in Reitblat's research - with his contemporaries. Reitblat also discusses the bright fates of long-forgotten figures such as the writer Feoktist Ulegov and the actress Elizaveta Shabelskaya. These texts are linked by the author’s approach to literature, which takes the latter as a phenomenon that cannot be fully understood by disregarding its ties with the state, economy, morality, religion and other social institutions.