New Questioning Strategies for Early Russian Autobiographies

Why question Early Russian autobiographical writings anew? Generally speaking, such revisions are suggested by recent changes in the humanities that challenge many commonly accepted concepts and notions. In particular, they complicate the prevailing vision of the side-by-side growth of the autobiography and individualism in the progressive development of humankind, the Eurocentric view “from above” on “underdeveloped” autobiographical traditions in non-Western cultures, and the very notion of the integral self that exists outside of a given text. As for the studies of pre-modern Russian autobiographical writings, the use of new theoretical insights and methodologies has been scarcely noticed hitherto. It may be suggested that recent insights of historians and literary scholars in the studies of autobiographies may have considerable implications for the reading of Early Russian autobiographical texts.