Hegel's political philosophy and the social imaginary of early Russian realism

Ilja Kliger

pp. 189-199

in: David Bakhurst, Ilja Kliger (eds), Hegel in Russia, Studies in East European Thought 65, 2013.

Abstract

This article considers aspects of the social imaginary underlying early Russian realist thought and narrative by exploring two canonical novels from the 1840s, Ivan Gončarov's Obyknovennaja istorija and Aleksandr Gercen's Kto vinovat?, in light of Vissarion Belinskij's activist reception of Hegel's political philosophy. The Russian texts are read symptomatically against their western counterparts as illustrating the intriguing transformations that dominant European models of narrative and sociality undergo as they migrate to Russia.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Belinskij Vissarion