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Abstract
The society tale (svetskaja povest') is a genre that was both important and popular in Russia during the 1830's. Nevertheless, it has received little attention from modern scholars. This study is designed to examine the society tale in terms of its internal structure and in light of its similarities with the British fashionable novel.
Chapters I and II consist of a brief overview of society literature in Russia and England, emphasizing the major works of the tradition and rediscovering many authors who have long been neglected in the criticism. Russian writers like V. F. Odoevskij, N. F. Pavlov, V. A. Sollogub, E. A. Gan and M. S. Zukova displayed in their tales the manners and values that shaped the world of the Russian aristocracy. Similarly, the novels of Bulwer-Lytton, R. P. Ward, Charlotte Bury and Marianne Hudson depicted the same social forces in the British upper class.
Chapter III focuses on differences between "society" heroes and heroines and the characters which appeared in the other genres of the early nineteenth century. While exhibiting many of the traits of the Romantic Age, characters in society tales break from their contemporaries in many ways, for they are generated by the social maxims and manners of the beau monde. Embodying the style and ethic that was the aristocracy, society ladies and gentleman play out in the romantic encounters which form the plots of the genre the problems facing the elite of society as they confront the social changes of the times.
The final chapter of this study examines the nature of aristocratic values as they appear both in Russian and in British society literature. The fine clothing, the fashionable haunts of the privileged, the wit of distinguished personages which comprise the outward manifestations of bon ton are fundamental features of the genre. When grouped under the label "exclusivity" ("svetkost'"), these characteristics become a reaction to the rising political and economic power of the middle class. The display of these social forces within the society tale is the basis of its contribution to the development of Russian prose and prefigures the socio-historical methods of the great Russian Realists.
