That Savage Gaze : : Wolves in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Imagination / / Ian M. Helfant.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Academic Studies Press Complete eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Helfant, Ian M.,
• Place / Publishing House: Boston, MA : : Academic Studies Press, , [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: The Unknown Nineteenth Century
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)

Imperial Russia's large wolf populations were demonized, persecuted, tormented, and sometimes admired. That Savage Gaze explores the significance of wolves in pre-revolutionary Russia utilizing the perspectives of cultural studies, ecocriticism, and human-animal studies. It examines the ways in which hunters, writers, conservationists, members of animal protection societies, scientists, doctors, government officials and others contested Russia's "Wolf Problem" and the particular threat posed by rabid wolves. It elucidates the ways in which wolves became intertwined with Russian identity both domestically and abroad. It argues that wolves played a foundational role in Russians' conceptions of the natural world in ways that reverberated throughout Russian society, providing insights into broader aspects of Russian culture and history as well as the opportunities and challenges that modernity posed for the Russian empire.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- A Note on Translation and Transliteration -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1. Harnessing the Domestic to Confront the Wild: Borzoi Wolf Hunting and Masculine Aggression in War and Peace -- CHAPTER 2. The Rise of Hunting Societies, the Professionalization of Wolf Expertise, and the Legal Sanctioning of Predator Control with Guns and Poison -- CHAPTER 3. Chekhov's "Hydrophobia," Kuzminskaya's "The Rabid Wolf," and the Fear of Bestial Madness on the Eve of Pasteur's Panacea -- CHAPTER 4. Fissures in the Flock: Wolf Hounding, the Humane Society, and the Literary Redemption of a Feared Predator -- Conclusion -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Index