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3.6 - The Short Story

from History 3 - Forms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 December 2024

By
Lyudmila Parts
Edited by
Simon Franklin ,
Rebecca Reich  and
Emma Widdis
Simon Franklin
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rebecca Reich
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Emma Widdis
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This chapter argues that the brevity and inherent orality of the Russian short story allows for the introduction of new, often stigmatised subject matter and for experimentation with form and language. The short story laid the groundwork for the novel, but not by providing shorter pieces to be assembled into a more complex plot. Rather, its role was to work out innovative aesthetic and thematic models that the novel would later carry into the cultural mainstream. For this reason, the short story often came to the fore during periods of literary and ideological change. The chapter presents the evolution of the Russian short story in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention to Anton Chekhov, the author who finalised the shift to what we now recognise as the typical concerns of the modern short story.

Keywords

short storyRomanticismModernismRealismPostmodernismAnton Chekhovbrevityshort-story cycleshort-story endings
Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature , pp. 553 - 569
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Erlich, Victor (ed.), Modernism and Revolution: Russian Literature in Transition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Luker, Nicholas (ed.), The Short Story in Russia, 1900–1917 (Nottingham: Astra, 1991).Google Scholar
Moser, Charles A. (ed.), The Russian Short Story: A Critical History (Boston: Twayne, 1986).Google Scholar
Nilsson, Nils Åke (ed.), Studies in Twentieth Century Russian Prose (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1982).Google Scholar
Parts, Lyudmila (ed.), The Russian Twentieth Century Short Story: A Critical Companion (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009).Google Scholar

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