Unresolved Issues in the Study of Russian Literature of the Turn of the Century

These fundamental issues have long been the object of discussion, although for the most part they have not been addressed directly. The discussion has embraced a wide variety of vital issues relating both to the classics of the nineteenth century and to Soviet literature. Arguments over the processes at work in the literary history of the turn of the century were particularly intense some twenty or thirty years ago. Prior to that, it was believed that the old Realism was dying out. Even then, some scholars doubted that this was so, although the discussion did not go beyond the usual commonplaces. The literary processes themselves at the turn of the century were not examined in detail.