Ideals and Reality in Russian Literature

Prince Peter Alexeyevich Kropotkin was not only a prominent revolutionary, ideologue, and theorist of anarcho-communism, but also a famous scientist and researcher who wrote a number of serious scientific works on geography, geology, and literature. He was involved in educational... activities and tried to introduce the Western public to the richness of Russian culture. His course of lectures on the history of Russian literature, delivered in the USA in the early 20th century, became popular. Recorded in English and briefly edited by the author, the lectures were then translated into Russian and first published in Russia in 1907. Since then, they have been reissued numerous times, and several of Kropotkin's assessments and concepts became the basis of Soviet literary studies. We owe Prince Kropotkin some well-known stable expressions and definitions from Soviet literature textbooks. The main feature of this course can be called its extreme political engagement. Ideology is the main measure of everything and influences any assessment; the author and work are weighed on the scales of usefulness or harm for the cause of "revolutionary struggle and building a better world." Despite these features, the course of lectures represents a monumental attempt to systematize the entire history of Russian culture and offers a coherent concept and scheme for its study. With all its drawbacks, Kropotkin's views are interesting and largely original, his assessments are distinctive and often accurate, and his theoretical propositions represent not only ideological but also scientific value.