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The article offers a methodological reflection on the practical work of reading race in Russian literary texts, especially from the nineteenth century. It makes four key arguments. First, “racialization,” in the sense of an interactive process, is a more productive lens than an essentially static concept of race. Second, race is not only, and not always, a question of perception or meaning-making, but also ideology. Third, the concept of race typically engages notions of class, gender, and sexuality, an intersectionality that merits particular attention. Fourth, critiquing race can be productively furthered by paying attention to anxieties and insecurities that underlie racial hierarchies and biases, which can be revealed through readings against the grain. As we cast new light on Russia's engagement with race, it is essential that the culture of the Russian nineteen-century become part of this reappraisal.

In this article Edyta Bojanowska explores the circumstances surrounding the publication, in 1863 in the Dostoevskii brothers' journalVremia, of a pro-Polish article by Nikolai Strakhov that led to the journal's closing. Bojanowska argues against accepting Strakhov's and Fedor Dostoevskii's retroactive explanations that the article was misunderstood. She analyzes Strakhov's article and the entire issue ofVremiain which it appeared and finds a consistent message in both: that Russia should withdraw from Poland, where imperial success would be either unlikely or too costly, shift its attention from imperial expansion to a domestic agenda, and restructure the empire into one based on the constituent populations' consent. Given Dostoevskii's endorsement of Strakhov's article and his hands-on editorial work onVremia, this affair suggests a tolerant and pragmatic phase in Dostoevskii's imperial ideology that contrasts with the militant imperialistic punditry of his later period.

PUSHKIN: What the devil! Seems I've tripped over Gogol!GOGOL: (Getting up) What a vile abomination! You can't even have a rest. (Walks off, stumbles over PUSHKIN and falls) Seems I've stumbled over Pushkin!PUSHKIN: (Getting up) Not a minute of peace! (Walks off, stumbles over GOGOL and falls) What the devil! Seems I've tripped over Gogol again!GOGOL: (Getting up) Always an obstacle in everything! (Walks off, stumbles over PUSHKIN and falls) It's a vile abomination! Tripped over Pushkin again!PUSHKIN: (Getting up) Hooliganism! Sheer hooliganism! (Walks off, stumbles over GOGOL and falls) [etc., etc.] Daniil Kharms, "Pushkin and Gogol" (1934)INTRODUCTIONA tradition of contrasting the Pushkinian and Gogolian origins of modem Russian literature began famously with N. G. Chernyshevskii and was later reinvented by V. Rozanov.1 Yet Russian literary criticism has also produced an opposite critical trend, which has stressed the personal and artistic relationship between the two writers and noted Gogol" s apparent indebtedness to Pushkin in almost every aspect of his art. Gukovskii's famous monograph on Gogol' typifies this trend. It makes Pushkin an absolute reference point without which Gogol' would have been unthinkable, and situates a commentary on Pushkin as the sine qua non of any meaningful commentary on Gogol'.2 Russian literary criticism, both imperial and Soviet, eager to construct teleologies in the manner of royal lines of succession, placed Pushkin at the head of Russian literature and crowned Gogol' as his successor. Pushkin's purported gift to Gogol' of the plots of his two greatest works, The Government Inspector and Dead Souls, achieved a significance approaching the transfer of regalia. Gogol" s 1835 Arabesques article "Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine" [A Few Words about Pushkin], in which he eulogizes Pushkin as a national poet, has served as important evidence that Gogol' treated Pushkin as his mentor and placed him on a pedestal.What I propose here is a close reading of this article that finds Gogol" s praise of Pushkin double-edged and disingenuous. The text contradicts the idea of the two writers as amicable collaborators in the arts, at least as far as Gogol' - despite his mercenary posturing - was concerned. The text bears the stamp of characteristic Gogolian chutzpah that most students of Gogol' - myself included - find quite amusing and readily forgivable. But along with the fun of cheeky innuendo the article also carries a serious message with regard to Gogol"s conception of "national" art. In the course of discussing Pushkin's strategies of encoding nationality in literature, Gogol' develops his own conception of national literary expression, by which he aims to affix the stamp of nationality to his own writings, rather than Pushkin's.The complexities of Gogolian texts often echo the complexities of his biography and "A Few Words About Pushkin" proves a case in point. The nature and extent of the two writers' friendship is a matter of some controversy. Though most students of Russian literature inherit an image of the two writers as warm and respectful friends, some critics, like Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitry Mirsky, and Andrei Siniavskii, have doubted Gogol"s and Pushkin's personal closeness. Most recently, Yuri Druzhnikov has gathered known factual data and debunked this entrenched myth.3 Druzhnikov is right to note Pushkin's reserved, business-like tone in his scanty correspondence with Gogol' and his attempts to keep the young Ukrainian at arm's length. Gogol' himself, who shamelessly dropped Pushkin's name to impress his friends, wildly exaggerated and mischaracterized the scope of their personal contacts, particularly during the summer of 1831. 4 Gogol"s own claim of intimacy with Pushkin appears questionable also in light of his correspondence after Pushkin's death, in which Gogol" s lamentations ring hollow.5Gogol"s attitude to Pushkin was in fact quite self-serving. …