Russian Epistolary Writing from the Middle Ages to the Turn of the 19th Century

Abstract

Epistolary writing is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Russia’s contributions to world literature—despite the landmark theoretical work of the Russian Formalists in the 1920s, which presciently highlighted the literary interest of the letter and paved the way for the explosion of scholarship on epistolarity in the West in the late 20th century. Nevertheless, the epistolary mode has accompanied and helped to shape Russian literature since its beginnings. For many centuries, epistolary texts offered a space for unusually vivid expressions of unique authorial selves while at the same time encouraging self-conscious play with literary form. Within a century of the adoption of writing by the Eastern Slavs in the mid-10th century, people across the social spectrum were writing letters on birchbark; in the Middle Ages, when Russian writing aimed above all to teach religious truths and build a Christian community, epistolary forms facilitated the creation of exceptionally individualized representations of the author(s) and/or addressee(s) of letters. In the early modern period, epistolary forms played an important role in the development of literature, since they were among the first types of text to be recognized as distinct genres. The late 18th and early 19th centuries witnessed the heyday of the European-style familiar letter, which became a primary literary genre through which elite writers maintained emotional, social, and professional ties, projected a sophisticated self-image, and wrestled with the implications of Russia’s participation in Western cultural life.