Haunted Empire: Gothic and the Russian Imperial Uncanny
Valeria Sobol
Abstract
This book shows that Gothic elements in Russian literature frequently expressed deep-set anxieties about the Russian imperial and national identity. The book argues that the persistent Gothic tropes in the literature of the Russian Empire enact deep historical and cultural tensions arising from Russia's idiosyncratic imperial experience. It brings together theories of empire and colonialism with close readings of canonical and less-studied literary texts as the book explores how Gothic horror arises from the threatening ambiguity of Russia's own past and present, producing the effect Sobol ter ... More
This book shows that Gothic elements in Russian literature frequently expressed deep-set anxieties about the Russian imperial and national identity. The book argues that the persistent Gothic tropes in the literature of the Russian Empire enact deep historical and cultural tensions arising from Russia's idiosyncratic imperial experience. It brings together theories of empire and colonialism with close readings of canonical and less-studied literary texts as the book explores how Gothic horror arises from the threatening ambiguity of Russia's own past and present, producing the effect Sobol terms “the imperial uncanny.” Focusing on two spaces of “the imperial uncanny” — the Baltic “North”/Finland and the Ukrainian “South” — the book reconstructs a powerful discursive tradition that reveals the mechanisms of the Russian imperial imagination that are still at work today.
Keywords:
Russian literature,
Gothic tropes,
Russian national identity,
Russian imperial identity,
colonialism,
Russian Empire,
Gothic horror
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781501750571 |
| Published to Cornell Scholarship Online: May 2021 |
DOI:10.7591/cornell/9781501750571.001.0001 |
