Balanced precariously between fact and fiction, the historical novel is often viewed with suspicion. Some have attacked it as a mongrel form, a bastard son born of history s flagrant adultery with imagination. Yet it includes some of the most celebrated achievements of Russian literature, with Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, and scores of other writers contributing to this tradition. Dan Ungurianu s "Plotting History" traces the development of the Russian historical novel from its inception in the romantic era to the emergence of Modernism on the eve of the Revolution....
Balanced precariously between fact and fiction, the historical novel is often viewed with suspicion. Some have attacked it as a mongrel form, a bas...