Abstract

This chapter traces the history of the Russian philosophical novel from Karamzin’s sentimental tales to Nabokov’s metafictions. It argues that the novel served as a crucial medium of moral reflection and secularization throughout the “long nineteenth century.” By examining several novels that are pivotal to the Russian canon, I show that, contrary to the wide-spread assumption, nihilism was not the prevalent topic in the classical Russian novel. When it came to ethics, the majority of Russian authors were idealists, even when they adopted realistic representational techniques. As my analyses show, this idealistic bent in “high culture” and literature can be explained by the fact that fiction served as the realm through which members of the Russian intellectual elite asserted moral autonomy.