Short story or play about Russian nihilists or revolutionaries

[Victoria Thorstensson]

This is tough. Most of the nihilist and anti-nihilist works are novels  
or novellas, and it sounds like you are looking for a short story. The  
most obvious choice for me would be a short story by Dyakov-Nezlobin  
from his "Circles" cycle. Unfortunately, none of them are translated.  
I maintain that the nihilist/anti-nihilist distinction is very  
artificial, and most of the "nihilist" and "anti-nihilist" works  
recycle similar themes and have similar characters. Therefore, I think  
that you can consider taking Kovalevskaya's "Nihilist Girl." It is not  
very long. Although the period that it describes is more "populist"  
than "nihilist," it will still be suitable for what you are trying to  
achieve in your course. If you want a "nihilist" period, however,  
Pomialovsky's "Molotov" is a good choice (presuming that Turgenev's  
Fathers and Sons is too long for you) -- but I have not seen any  
English translation of that either. There are some works by bigger  
authors (bigger, that is, than Kovalevskaya or Pomialovsky) which, one  
way or another, touch on the problem of nihilism. You can consider  
taking Leskov's "Овцебык" or "Загадочный  
человек" (they are, most likely, translated). Another genre to  
consider is poetry. Try looking for the English translations of A. K.  
Tolstoy's ballads about nihilism. Finally, I have some graphic novels  
by Dmitry Minaev from Iskra that satirize some of the bigger polemical  
novels of the period. There is very little text in them (just a few  
pages) but it needs to be translated. They are hilarious.

Overall, the bottom line is that the more artistically accomplished  
polemical works about nihilism in the 1860-1870s are novels and it  
will be hard to find something that is considerably higher in quality  
than Tolstoy's "Infected Family." If your concern is, first and  
foremost, to expose students to great works of Russian literature, I  
suggest taking some excerpts from Dostoevsky's Demons (e.g. the  
chapter "With Our People") and providing some context for them in your  
lecture.

Best,

Vika (Victoria Thorstensson)
Quoting "Kevin M. F. Platt" <kmfplatt at sas.upenn.edu>:

> Dear colleagues:
>
> I would like to find a short work in English translation about  
> Russian revolutionaries, radicalism or terrorism dating from the  
> late 19C. This is for a cultural history/social history course that  
> I teach in which I alternate between lecture and discussion modes  
> and place short works into historical context--it's for the "terror  
> and revolution" week. I would love to find a short anti-nihilist  
> work (as opposed to the big anti-nihilist novels, which are too long  
> for my purposes), or an anti-nihilist play (I've used Tolstoy's  
> "Infected Family," but it's so lacking in literary merits that I  
> want to get away from it). Suggestions?
>
> kp
>
> Kevin M. F. Platt
> Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities
> University of Pennsylvania
>
> kmfplatt at sas.upenn.edu
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/slavic/faculty/platt.htm
>
> T: 215-908-1685; F: 215-573-7794
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Visiting Scholar
University of Pennsylvania

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