About this Book

Yuli Aikhenvald was one of the most popular and influential Russian literary critics of the early 1900s. His major book, Silhouettes of Russian Writers, went through six ever-expanding editions. A major presence in Vladimir Nabokov’s early career, Aikhenvald has since been neglected by other writers and critics. This collection translates several of Aikhenvald’s key essays, making him available to English-speaking readers for the first time. Today’s readers will discover in these writings original, impassioned interpretations of major Russian authors and a theoretical vision that grapples with an urgent question in this “crisis-of-the-humanities” moment: What is the function of criticism?