Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature: In the Margins of Totalitarianism

Karetnyk, Bryan

This book presents a sustained and systematic analysis of the totalitarian topos across Vladimir Nabokov’s life and career. Contributing to the ongoing reappraisal of Nabokov’s writing in its engagement with politics and ideology, this study contends that the rise of totalitarianism constituted one of the most urgent, substantial and complex issues with which Nabokov and his peers in emigration had to contend. Yet while the precarious exilic status of the Russian diaspora not only made the spread of totalitarian ideologies and dictatorships an acute and tangible danger, it also, perversely, afforded its members exceptionally free scope to respond intellectually and creatively, as individuals outside and on the limits of these systems. This is the first book that critically and comprehensively examines Nabokov’s literary and intellectual responses to the rise of totalitarian systems and ideologies, contextualizing them within those of his peers in the first wave of Russian emigration.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2025-10-02

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783031900174

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-90018-1

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 294