Fathers and Sons

This book traces an explosive and dynamic pattern-generational interaction and conflict-in the last two centuries of Russian history. Reform, revolutions, terrorism and dictatorship, and their cultural artifacts they produced (E.g. Pushkin's poems, Dostoevsky's novels, and Eisenstein's films) are explored through this timeless prism. With political power in Russia flowing directly from the ruler to his subjects, the distinction between the public and private became porous. The identification of political rulers with fathers, and population with children created a dynamic that significantly shaped Russian attitudes and cultural practices, and tinted social conflicts with intensity of family dramas. This book examines artistic works generated by the reforms, revolutions, and other political transformations of the last two centuries, through the prism of generational interaction, illuminating and re-interpreting the frequently misunderstood or misread cultural events such as the reception of St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky’s and Bely's novels, Stalin’s cult of personality, and Eisenstein’s films.