Western crime fiction goes East : the Russian Pinkerton craze 1907-1934 / / by Boris Dralyuk.

• Superior document: Russian history and culture ; vol. 11
• Author: Dralyuk, Boris.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Russian history and culture (Leiden, Netherlands) ; v. 11.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (196 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book examines the staggering popularity of early-twentieth-century Russian detective serials. Traditionally maligned as “Pinkertonovshchina,” these appropriations of American and British detective stories featuring Nat Pinkerton, Nick Carter, Sherlock Holmes, Ethel King, and scores of other sleuths swept the Russian reading market in successive waves between 1907 and 1917, and famously experienced a “red” resurgence in the 1920's under the aegis of Nikolai Bukharin. The book presents the first holistic view of “Pinkertonovshchina” as a phenomenon, and produces a working model of cross-cultural appropriation and reception. The “red Pinkerton” emerges as a vital “missing link” between pre- and post-Revolutionary popular literature, and marks the fitful start of a decades-long negotiation between the regime, the author, and the reading masses.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 As Many Street Cops as Corners”: Displacing 1905 in the Pinkertons -- 2 A Terrible Vengeance: The “Avenger Detective” in Russia -- 3 Slumming Littérateurs and Starving Students: The Pinkertons’ Purported Authors -- 4 The Persistence of Pinkertons: Reception before and after the Revolution -- 5 The Red Pinkerton’s Rise: Bukharin and the Komsomol -- 6 How the Mess Was Mended: Marietta Shaginian and Red Pinkertonism -- 7 The Novel, the Film, and the Kinoroman: Parody and the Decline of the Red Pinkerton -- 8 The Question of Genre and the Pinkertons’ Legacy -- Bibliography -- Index.