Towards Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance (Russian Literature & Thought) Book

In Toward Another Shore, British historian Aileen M. Kelly, a specialist in Russian history, posits that current attitudes toward 19th-century Russian intellectuals are the result of distortions on the part of both Soviet and Western historians. These historians were, in great part, influenced by cold war ideology, Kelly argues. Yet at a time when Russia is trying to build herself anew, it is important to clear away political revisionism and take a good look at what 19th-century thinkers might have to offer the present generation. In 17 essays written over a period of 20 years, Kelly explores the diversity of political thought that developed in the Russia of the past century. What she demonstrates is that, far from being lockstep in their philosophies (as cold war political historians tended to portray them), Russian intellectuals were, in reality, a disparate group that ranged from the extreme left to the extreme right. Far from being 20/20, hindsight is often blinkered by the seeming inexorability of events; in Toward Another Shore, Aileen Kelly shows that the revolution of 1917 and its resulting political system was by no means the only possible outcome of 19th-century Russian thought--even as late as 1909 Russian reformers were debating several different possibilities. Kelly describes and comments on these arguments with tremendous intelligence, adding valuable new insights to the study of Russian political thought. Read More