In the development of modernist fiction, perhaps no artistic product has had as vaunted a place as the novel, a genre theorized primarily with recourse to Western authors. Here, Lukasz Wodzynski challenges the primacy of the novel as the organizing principle of modernist prose in Eastern and Central Europe, particularly in Polish and Russian culture. By carefully studying some of the most innovative texts from these cultures, Wodzynski posits that the "novel" genre has hindered our understanding of long modernist narratives and proposes to read these pathbreaking works as an early twentieth-century reclamation of the romance. Specifically, he argues that these latter-day romances channel early modernist apocalyptic and utopian ideals through popular genres like science fiction and adventure narratives-and thus imagine a human future freed from modern fixations on control, efficiency, and utility. The romance form, he suggests, was uniquely poised to address the deep civilizational anxieties underwriting modernist literary publications in East-Central Europe. Understanding these works and the ways in which they spoke to these anxieties thus informs not only the study of Polish and Russian literature but also the development of modernism itself.
Lukasz Wodzynski is an assistant professor of Polish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work has appeared in The Polish Review, Slavic and East European Journal, Slavonic and East European Review, and Slavic Review.
Note on Translation and Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1: The Romance of Utopian Desire: Jerzy Zulawski's Lunar Trilogy Between Enchantment and Disenchantment Chapter 2: The Romance of Success: Fedor Sologub's Quest for "Pure Fame" Chapter 3: The Romance of (Self-)Creation: Evgeny Zamiatin's Dystopian Adventure Chapter 4: The Romance of Mystery Regained: Witkacy's Portrait of the Adventurer as a Young Decadent Coda: Antinomies of the Modernist Romance Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
"In this inviting, highly readable, and richly comparative study, Wodzynski shows us how, rather than following Ezra Pound's imperative to 'make it new,' modernist authors in a rapidly transforming region were much more concerned with how to make it real." - Benjamin Paloff, author of Lost in the Shadow of the Word: Space, Time, and Freedom in Interwar Eastern Europe "A new entry point into Slavic modernist studies-beautifully written, extensively researched, and compellingly argued." - Colleen McQuillen, author of The Modernist Masquerade: Stylizing Life, Literature, and Costumes in Russia
