Views from the other shore : essays on Herzen, Chekhov, and Bakhtin / Aileen M. Kelly

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-254) index

Introduction: Two Russian Ideas -- 1. Herzen and Francis Bacon -- 2. Herzen, Schiller, and the Aesthetic Education of Man -- 3. Herzen and Proudhon: Two Radical Ironists -- 4. A European Nanny: Herzen and Mill on Liberty -- 5. On the Origin of Species and From the Other Shore -- 6. "Dealing in Pluses": The Thought of Anton Chekhov -- 7. The Flesh of Time: Mikhail Bakhtin -- Conclusion: A New-Style Russian Idea

"Aileen M. Kelly examines a humanist strand of Russian thought that has until now received little notice or understanding. She finds in the writings of Aleksandr Herzen, Anton Chekhov, and Mikhail Bakhtin a pioneering emphasis on the role of chance and contingency in nature and history. Their writing on this theme, she argues, establishes the importance of these humanists in the development of European thought."--Jacket

"She shows how the view of freedom that Herzen shared with Chekhov and Bakhtin provides an antidote both to traditional absolutes and to the boundless relativism of much postmodern theory. As such it offers an answer to the question now besetting intellectuals in Russia and the West: how to ground morality after the collapse of ideological certainties."--Jacket