Entertaining Tsarist Russia : Tales, Songs, Plays, Movies, Jokes, Ads, and Images from Russian Urban Life, 1779-1917

This anthology introduces readers to Tsarist Russia s emerging popular and commercial urban culture and the individuals and groups that produced and consumed it.

The selections translated here illustrate in colorful detail how the experiences and the composition of Russian society and culture evolved from the late eighteenth century through the 1917 revolution, in response to economic, technological, and political changes.

Fortunetelling and etiquette manuals, thieves tales, children s literature, popular songs, war stories, women s novels, satires of life in America, and vaudeville skits are just a few of the genres represented.