Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Preface: Discussions of Creativity and Politics 1
4. Introduction 5
5. CHAPTER 1 Alexander Pushkin: How Repression Helped a Great Poet Create 27
6. CHAPTER 2 Nikolai Lobachevsky: Anonymity Promoted Geometry 31
7. CHAPTER 3 Nikolai Gogol: Winning Fame by Being an Enigma 37
8. CHAPTER 4 Pavel Shilling: How the Environment Thwarted Technical Creativity 41
9. CHAPTER 5 Ivan Turgenev: Moderation in Creativity Is Misunderstood 45
10. CHAPTER 6 Fyodor Dostoevsky: Prison Time Provokes Literary Creativity 49
11. CHAPTER 7 Pavel Yablochkov: Success Abroad Doesn’t Help Creativity at Home 57
12. CHAPTER 8 Nikolai Leskov: Praising Technology for the Wrong Reason 67
13. CHAPTER 9 Alexander Lodygin: Why a Russian Lightbulb before Edison’s Didn’t Succeed 71
14. CHAPTER 10 Modest Mussorgsky: Attempts at Unique Russian Music 79
15. CHAPTER 11 Sofia Kovalevskaia: A Woman’s Tortured Path to Success 85
16. CHAPTER 12 Dmitry Mendeleev: The Advantages of Backwardness 89
17. CHAPTER 13 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: An Amateur Becomes a Professional 95
18. CHAPTER 14 Borodin and Morse: Chemistry, Music, Art, and Technology 103
19. CHAPTER 15 Lev Tolstoy: Guilt Boosts Creativity 113
20. CHAPTER 16 Petr Tchaikovsky: Great Music in Anguish 119
21. CHAPTER 17 Anna Akhmatova: Fame and Oblivion 125
22. CHAPTER 18 Russian Mathematics Reaches for Glory, and Helps Literature 129
23. CHAPTER 19 Isaac Babel: Seduction and Violence Win Fame 137
24. CHAPTER 20 Maxim Gorky: The Frustrated Transformist 141
25. CHAPTER 21 Nadezhda Mandelstam: Oppression Nurtures Fame 147
26. CHAPTER 22 Rozing and Zvorykin: Forgotten Inventors of Television 151
27. CHAPTER 23 Vladimir Mayakovsky: Revolution Promotes then Demotes Creativity 157
28. CHAPTER 24 Sergei Eisenstein: Fame and Oblivion Again 161
29. CHAPTER 25 Sergei Prokofiev: Pleasing Soviet Ideologues Wasn’t Always Bad 167
30. CHAPTER 26 Sergei Lebedev: Pioneering Creativity Followed by Routine Imitation 177
31. CHAPTER 27 Dmitrii Lopatkin: Frustrated Engineers Object 183
32. CHAPTER 28 Mikhail Sholokhov: From Creativity to Orthodoxy 189
33. CHAPTER 29 A Hidden Side of Technological Achievements 195
34. CHAPTER 30 Boris Pasternak: Preservation of Intelligentsia Values 199
35. CHAPTER 31 Lev Landau: Enfant Terrible and Giant 207
36. CHAPTER 32 Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The Conventional Rebel 213
37. CHAPTER 33 Creativity in a Prison 221
38. CHAPTER 34 Sinyavsky and Daniel: Benefitting from Persecution 227
39. CHAPTER 35 Andrei Sakharov: Rationality, Morality, and Irrationality 231
40. CHAPTER 36 How Much has Changed? Art and Technology Try to Escape 239
41. CHAPTER 37 Zhores Alferov: New Transistors Do Not Help 247
42. CHAPTER 38 Grigori Perelman: The Genius as Caricature 253
43. CHAPTER 39 Svetlana Aleksievich: The Undesired Witness 259
44. CHAPTER 40 Computer Programming and Hacking 263
45. CHAPTER 41 Putin as Arbiter of All Things 267
46. CHAPTER 42 Concluding Analysis 271
47. Bibliography 291