The Firebird and the Fox

'Just before and after the October Revolution, the Russian literary, artistic, and performing arts enjoyed a moment of unprecedented brilliance. Brooks casts this Silver Age against the backdrop of Russia's radical renovations in commerce, industrial economy, and social structure - the result being a rich and effervescent synthesis of cultural, material, and political enquiry.' John E. Bowlt, University of Southern California 'Brooks brings a lifetime of learning to bear in his new interpretation of Russian and Soviet culture in its most creative century. He is able to suggest how a variety of cultural fields over time grappled with the same set of recurring Russian dilemmas, distilling the powerful motifs that writers, artists, and intellectuals repeatedly embroidered into their works. No one who studies or loves Russian culture can afford to ignore this book.' Michael David-Fox, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 'An immensely enjoyable and marvelously informative book placing the visual arts within the context of wider cultural developments, illuminating inter-relationships between creative individuals working in different media, and revealing the playfulness, humor, and political dissidence of artists operating under the Tsars and the Bolsheviks. An education and a joy to read.' Christina Lodder, University of Kent 'Monumental in scope and rigor, gentle in its approach to the fragility of the new material it uncovers, and written with irresistible force and mischievous wit, Brooks demonstrates why exactly we love Russian culture and could not do without its magic.' Inessa Medzhibovskaya, New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College 'Brooks introduces the reader to wondrous dimensions of Russian cultural creativity. By breaching the distinction between low and high culture, he reveals how popular themes and imagery permeated great works of literature and the arts, leavening their serious-minded discourse with doses of magical thinking and imagination.' Richard Wortman, Columbia University, New York 'This book provides an illuminating history of a century of Russian genius ... The result is a rewarding study of artistic production across a century of emancipation, industrialization, and professionalization; reaction and revolution; the creation and canonization of Russian classics; and innovation and repression.' M. A. Soderstrom, Choice '... The Firebird and the Fox is a valuable book not only for scholars ... but also for all readers interested in gaining a greater knowledge of Russia's past culture.' Walter G. Moss, The Russian Review 'The Firebird and the Fox [is] ... a distinctly wholesome book. Without being naive, it assumes that the first step toward making things better is to look for something good ... uncanny and exhilarating ...' Caryl Emerson, Los Angeles Review of Books 'Brooks addresses the vast cultural panorama of a century of Russian life, revealing elements of oral folklore, popular culture, fairy tales, legends and of their visual representations in the work of avant-garde artists and poets ... High and mass culture, drawing subjects and inspiration from the same sources, created a complex and not always harmonious 'ecosystem', especially in the sphere of artistic taste. But most importantly, through all the trials of the era, Russian culture sustained the theme of man's moral self-reliance, which, as Brooks proves, is the very engine and highest value of cultural life.' Marina Zagidullina, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie