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OverviewThe Epistolary Art of Catherine the Great is the first study to analyse comprehensively the letters of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia (reigned 1762-1796) and to argue that they constitute a masterpiece of eighteenth-century epistolary writing. In this book, Kelsey Rubin-Detlev traces Catherine’s development as a letter-writer, her networking strategies, and her image-making, demonstrating the centrality of ideas, literary experimentation, and manipulation of material form evident in Catherine’s epistolary practice. Through this, Rubin-Detlev illustrates how Catherine’s letters reveal her full engagement with the Enlightenment and further show how creatively she absorbed and responded to the ideas of her century. The letter was not merely a means by which the empress promoted Russia and its leader as European powers; it was a literary genre through which Catherine expressed her identity as a member of the social, political, and intellectual elite of her century. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Kelsey Rubin-DetlevPublisher: Liverpool University Press Imprint: Voltaire Foundation Volume: 2019:08 ISBN: 9781789620078ISBN 10: 1789620074 Pages: 416 Publication Date: 12 August 2019 Audience: College/higher education , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsList of illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Note on dates, quotations and transliteration Introduction: Catherine the Great, letter-writing and the elite Enlightenment The letters of Catherine the Great The elite Enlightenment of Catherine the Great Chapter 1: Catherine the epistolarian Catherine’s epistolary education: 1742-1762 Catherine’s début: 1762-1774 In transition: 1774-1781 Mastery: 1781-1789 An Enlightenment monarch in a Revolutionary world: 1789-1796 Catherine’s epistolary geography Catherine and her contemporaries Chapter 2: Catherine the Great and eighteenth-century epistolary style Lettres galantes Lettres familières Portrait and narrative letters Love letters Chapter 3: Fashioning the great Enlightenment monarch Gender and epistolary self-fashioning Catherine’s image as an Enlightenment intellectual Fashioning greatness The correct exercise of military might Compensating for military heroism: flourishing provinces Patronage of the arts and sciences Ethical greatness The legislator Chapter 4: The play of authority in epistolary form Authority and linguistic mastery Authority and writing practices Epistolary etiquette Paper use Datelines Salutations Closers Foregoing etiquette Affection-seeking formulae Postscripts Signatures, addresses and attachments Chapter 5: Epistolary publicity and the audience for Catherine’s correspondences The injunction against publication Building reputation through networks of epistolary sociability Managing celebrity through epistolary circulation From reputation to glory: writing for posterity by addressing gens de mérite Chapter 6: Greatness contested: Catherine’s epistolary response to the French Revolution Chronology of Catherine’s epistolary actions against the French Revolution Old and new in Catherine’s epistolary style Greatness contested: confronting the past Conclusion: new readers and new ways of reading Catherine’s letters Bibliography of works cited Archival sources Editions of Catherine’s letters Secondary sources: English Secondary sources: French Secondary sources: Russian Secondary sources: German Secondary sources: Italian IndexReviewsWinner of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL)'s Best First Book Prize 2020. Winner of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES)'s Alexander Nove Prize 2019. Reviews 'The monograph truly brings to life the complexity of Catherine's voice as reflected in her letter writing art as it evolved over decades. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural history of the eighteenth century, and an inspiring example of cultural and literary analysis of epistolary heritage.' American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), from their 2020 book awards. 'The book exhibits great imagination in the range of skills Rubin-Detlev demonstrates in spanning the broad historical grasp, theorisations of the letter genre and of gender construction as well as a fine sense of nuance when teasing out subtleties of evolving word usage or cliche, the nuances of Catherine's switching between languages, and textual detail. All of these facets are seamlessly integrated with an engaging and imaginative writing style especially impressive in a first book.' Prof. Judith Pallot (Christ Church, Oxford) and Prof. Jeremy Hicks (Queen Mary University of London), judges of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Alexander Nove Prize 2019. Winner of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL)'s Best First Book Prize 2020. Reviews 'The monograph truly brings to life the complexity of Catherine's voice as reflected in her letter writing art as it evolved over decades. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural history of the eighteenth century, and an inspiring example of cultural and literary analysis of epistolary heritage.' American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), from their 2020 book awards. Author InformationKelsey Rubin-Detlev is Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California. Her work focuses on the literature and culture of eighteenth-century Russia in European context, in particular correspondence, women’s writing, and Catherine the Great. She is the co-translator with Andrew Kahn of 'Catherine the Great, Selected Letters' (Oxford University Press, 2018). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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