Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance (Russian Literature and Thought Series) - Hardcover

Kelly, Aileen M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300070241 ISBN 13: 9780300070248

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1998

Synopsis

In this thought-provoking book, an internationally acclaimed scholar writes about the passion for ideology among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian intellectuals and about the development of sophisticated critiques of ideology by a continuing minority of Russian thinkers inspired by libertarian humanism. Aileen Kelly sets the conflict between utopian and anti-utopian traditions in Russian thought within the context of the shift in European thought away from faith in universal systems and "grand narratives" of progress toward an acceptance of the role of chance and contingency in nature and history.

In the current age, as we face the dilemma of how to prevent the erosion of faith in absolutes and final solutions from ending in moral nihilism, we have much to learn from the struggles, failures, and insights of Russian thinkers, Kelly says. Her essays―some of them tours de force that have appeared before as well as substantial new studies of Turgenev, Herzen, and the Signposts debate―illuminate the insights of Russian intellectuals into the social and political consequences of ideas of such seminal Western thinkers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Darwin.

Russian Literature and Thought Series

About this title

Review:

In Toward Another Shore, British historian Aileen M. Kelly, a specialist in Russian history, posits that current attitudes toward 19th-century Russian intellectuals are the result of distortions on the part of both Soviet and Western historians. These historians were, in great part, influenced by cold war ideology, Kelly argues. Yet at a time when Russia is trying to build herself anew, it is important to clear away political revisionism and take a good look at what 19th-century thinkers might have to offer the present generation. In 17 essays written over a period of 20 years, Kelly explores the diversity of political thought that developed in the Russia of the past century. What she demonstrates is that, far from being lockstep in their philosophies (as cold war political historians tended to portray them), Russian intellectuals were, in reality, a disparate group that ranged from the extreme left to the extreme right. Far from being 20/20, hindsight is often blinkered by the seeming inexorability of events; in Toward Another Shore, Aileen Kelly shows that the revolution of 1917 and its resulting political system was by no means the only possible outcome of 19th-century Russian thought--even as late as 1909 Russian reformers were debating several different possibilities. Kelly describes and comments on these arguments with tremendous intelligence, adding valuable new insights to the study of Russian political thought.

Review:

Although many of these essays are rich in insight and thought-provoking, the collection as a whole strikes me as denser than day-old black bread. -- The Wall Street Journal, Michael J. Ybarra

Everything Kelly produces is of interest, and her best essays are sheer delight. Packed with information, densely argued, clearly written... -- The New York Times Book Review, Michael Scammell

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0300070241
• ISBN 13: 9780300070248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416