Pasternak's Short Fiction and the Cultural Vanguard

"Pasternak's Short Fiction and the Cultural Vanguard" explores Boris Pasternak's (1890-1960) early fiction from 1911-1931 in relation to the development of contemporary literature, art, and philosophy. Contrary to the prevailing critical view, Rudova argues that Pasternak's short fiction was not a mere extension of his poetry. The emergence of Pasternak's literary idiom was greatly influenced by his cultural and intellectual environment and by his creation of literary language capable of rendering the novel ideas of the time. Throughout her study she analyzes Pasternak's cultural environment, including philosophy and the arts, and the thinking of Pasternak's most influential contemporaries. This allows her to trace the origin and the pattern of Pasternak's aesthetic vision and to establish how it affected his literary technique.