Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II

Vera Proskurina

Open Access Published by Academic Studies Press 2011

Creating the Empress

Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II

Vera Proskurina
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program

In the series Ars Rossica

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781618116710

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Creating the Empress, Vera Proskurina examines the interaction between power and poetry in creating the imperial image of Catherine the Great, providing a detailed analysis of a wide range of Russian literary works from this period, particularly the main Classical myths associated with Catherine (Amazon, Astraea, Pallas Athena, Felicitas, Fortune, etc.), as well as how these Classical subjects affirmed imperial ideology and the monarch’s power. Each chapter of the book revolves around the major events of Catherine’s reign (and some major literary works) that give a broad framework to discuss the evolution of important recurring motifs and images.

Author / Editor information

Vera J. Proskurina (Ph.D., Moscow State University) is a lecturer in Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures department at Emory University. She is the author of two books and sixty articles on Russian literature and the intellectual history of Russia. Her first book, Mikhail Gershenzon: his Life and Myth (1998) was devoted to the Jewish Russian writer and thinker of the first decades of the 20th century. Her second book, Myths of Empire: Politics and Literature in the Time of Catherine II, first appeared in Moscow in 2006.

Reviews

A. J. DeBlasio, Dickinson College:
"The volume includes careful analyses of contemporary sources as well as of the poetry, prose, and journalism of the 18th century. Highly recommended."

Vladimir Golstein, Brown University:
Proskurina prefers to present her exploration of cultural production of the Catherine era in a discourse that has a distinctly Foucauldian flavor: symbolism of power, translatio imperii, self-fashioning, or self-presentation...it is an ambitious project, both in its scope and its theoretical claims.

Irina Reyfman, Columbia University:
“Vera Proskurina’s Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II is an erudite and imaginative examination of Catherine the Great’s reign through the double lens of politics and poetry. The author, who is known for her expert and graceful interpretation of cultural symbols, brings this approach to perfection in the new volume. She traces different aspects of Catherine’s age symbolic representation beginning with a brilliant deconstruction of the gender dynamic in the 1762 coup d’état and ending with a masterful analysis of the Empress’s dubious reputation as an ageing coquette in the last years of her reign. Theoretically sound and well-written, the book will be a welcome addition to the library of every Catherine scholar. The book’s handsome appearance makes it a pleasure to read."

Marcus C. Levitt, University of Southern California:
“Vera Proskurina’s Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II offers a striking and sophisticated demonstration of the ways literary works served and shaped imperial ideology. It joins other recent path breaking works like those of Andrei Zorin, Cynthia Whittaker and Elise Wirtschafter that read eighteenth-century Russian literature back into the political and cultural landscape of the day. Dr. Proskurina offers brilliant new close readings of many familiar works establishing their rich meanings by reconstructing the Russian and European cultural context. She demonstrates the vital political functions of this literature as it expressed and shaped imperial Russian culture. These functions include establishing various myths that supported Catherine’s power as a woman ruler and that shaped cultural, literary and political aspects of court culture. Dr. Proskurina bring to her subject an impressive grasp not only of the literary texts and written sources, but also of the cultural specifics of the era, viewing the works under investigation through the prism of contemporary literary institutions and the complexities of reigning cultural mythology they helped foster.”

Paul Keenan, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science:
“The strength of Proskurina's work lies in its detailed analysis of a wide range of Russian literary works from this period, particularly in highlighting the frequent use of Classical subjects or genres by authors to discuss the symbolic or analogous content of their writings. Similarly, she draws on an impressive range of English- and Russian-language scholarship to emphasize the need to view these Classical themes and motifs in the context of wider European symbolic traditions, as well as the immediate historical context of Catherine II's reign.”

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	5
Contents Open Access Download PDF	7
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	9
Chapter One. Coup d’état as Cross-dressing Open Access Download PDF	13
Chapter Two. Astraea’s coming to the Russian Throne Open Access Download PDF	49
Chapter Three. Catherine the Healer Open Access Download PDF	86
Chapter Four. Toppling the Bronze Horseman Open Access Download PDF	109
Chapter Five. The War in Greek Garb Open Access Download PDF	150
Chapter Six. The Birth of Felitsa Open Access Download PDF	182
Chapter Seven. Politics as Carnival in Derzhavin’s Ode to Fortun Open Access Download PDF	218
Chapter Eight. Ridiculing the Monarch Open Access Download PDF	256
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	286
Index Open Access Download PDF	303

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 312

eBook

Published: December 17, 2017
ISBN: 9781618116710