Startlingly original artist and writer, Aleksei Remizov began to make his mark on Russian literature at the turn of the century. Inextricably tied to the rich culture of the Russian Silver Age, Remizov shunned association with any single school, yet his work reflects the many trends and transitions that characterized this exceptionally creative and turbulent time in Russia's cultural history.
Slobin's study is the first in English to address Remizov's fiction in its cultural and historical context. A chronological reading of Remizov's early work reflects the novel's transition in Russia from the realist to the modern tradition. Slobin's focus on Remizov's development as a writer also illuminates his experimental explorations of the interaction between Russia's literary and nonliterary heritage, including medieval texts, folklore, and popular culture.
In addition to providing extensive analysis of Remizov's longer fiction, considered in stages representative of his artistic and philosophical development, Slobin includes biographical information introducing the reader to aspects of the writer's life that help to elucidate his work. Throughout, the study provides information concerning Remizov's seminal role in the development of modernist Russian prose, a role that opened creative pathways for such important post-revolutionary writers as Zamyatin, Pilnyak, and the Serapion Brothers.