Additional information
by Thomas Riha (Editor)
"This new and enlarged version of Readings in Russian Civilization is the result of fairly extensive revisions. There are now 72 instead of 64 items; 20 of the selections are new. The first volume has undergone the least change with 3 new items, of which 2 appear in English for the first time. In the second volume there are 6 new items; all of them appear in English for the first time. The third volume has undergone the greatest revision, with 11 new items, of which 6 are newly translated from the Russian. It is the editor's hope that items left out in the new edition will not be sorely missed, and that the new selections will turn out to be useful and illuminating. The aim, throughout, has been to cover areas of knowledge and periods which had been neglected in the first edition, and to include topics which are important in the study of the Russian past and present.
"The bibliographical headnotes have been enlarged, with the result that there are now approximately twice as many entries as in the old edition. New citations include not only works which have appeared since 1963, but also older books and articles which have come to the editor's attention."-From the Editor's Preface ". . . a judicious combination of seminal works and more recent commentaries that achieves the editor's purpose of stimulating curiosity and developing a point of view."-C. Bickford O'Brien, The Russian Review "These three volumes cover quite well the main periods of Russian civilization. The choice of the articles and other material is made by a competent and unbiased scholar."-Ivan A. Lopatin, Professor of Asian and Slavic Studies, University of Southern CaliforniaBack Jacket
In selecting the readings for these volumes, I was guided by several considerations. The selection, first of all, was to be important for the period of Russian history under consideration. Second, it was to lend itself fairly easily to class analysis--if possible, by the discussion method. This meant that polemics were preferable to descriptions, though I could not, and indeed did not wish to, manage without the latter. The selection was to stimulate curiosity to the point where the reader would wish to pursue the subject further.
