Developed as a reader for upper division undergraduates and beginning graduates,From Symbolism to Socialist Realism offers a broad variety of materialscontextualizing the literary texts most frequently read in Russian literaturecourses at this level. These approaches range from critical- theoretical articles, cultural and historical analyses, literary manifestos and declarationsof literary aesthetics, memoirs of revolutionary terrorism and arrests by theNKVD, political denunciations and "literary vignettes" capturing the spirit ofits particular time in a nutshell. The voices of this "polyphonic" reader arediverse: Briusov, Savinkov, Ivanov-Razumnik, Kollontai, Tsvetaeva, Shklovsky,Olesha, Zoshchenko, Zhdanov, Grossman, Evtushenko and others. The range ofspecialists on Russian culture represented here is equally broad: Clark, Erlich,Falen, Grossman, Nilsson, Peace, Poznansky, Siniavskii, Volkov and others. Togetherthey evoke and illuminate a complex and tragic era.