In his examination of Russian literature in the context of Russia's history, Vladimir Kantor touches on several themes, including: Westernism and Russian history, the fate of Russian literature, Pushkin: the poet and freedom, Russian art and the culture of professors, chaos versus civilization in revolutionary Russia, Lev Tolstoy: timelessness as temptation, carnival and devilry: on Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Demons, Dresden as a magical crystal of Russian problems. Kantor considers Russian philosophy in the context of the fall of the Tsarist Empire: Vladimir Solov ev contra Nietzsche, the artistic era and its consequences: reflections while reading Fyodor Stepun, a philosopher between the catastrophes in Russia and Germany, Semën Frank: the principle of Christian realism or: against utopian arbitrariness. The appendix contains...