While along the legendary quay
There came not the calendrical
But the real twentieth century

—Anna Akhmatova, Poem Without a Hero

Series Editor: Thomas Seifrid (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)

Editorial Board:

Stephen Blackwell (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Jonathan Bolton (Harvard University)
Clare Cavanagh (Northwestern University)
Nancy Condee (Pittsburgh University)
Caryl Emerson (Princeton University)
Robert English (University of Southern California)
Beth Holmgren (Duke University)
Mikhail Iampolskii (New York University)
Galin Tihanov (Manchester University)
Ronald Vroon (University of California, Los Angeles)
Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya (Florida State University)

“The Real Twentieth Century” is a book series devoted to the twentieth century as a distinct and coherent phenomenon in the field of Slavic studies. Its aim is to promote scholarly inquiry into various aspects of Russian, or other eastern European, literatures and cultures that in retrospect appear definitive of that era. Studies in this series seek to analyze cultural forms that played a significant role in shaping the Russian (or eastern European) experience in the twentieth century, or that in some way reveal underlying historical, political, or aesthetic factors peculiar to it. In the spirit of Akhmatova’s Poem Without A Hero—itself a definitive text of the era—the series takes “twentieth century” to mean a particular set of historical and cultural factors rather than merely a range of dates. Revolutions, wars, totalitarianism, and dissent are part of it, but so are aesthetic innovation, rapid technological change, and consumerism. Ultimately, the series aims at historical assessment of our remarkable recent past.