Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments vii
4. Preface xi
5. Abbreviations xix
6. Introduction: A New World – Modern Spiritualism in Russia, 1853–1870s 1
7. PART ONE TABLE TALKS: SEANCE AS CULTURAL METAPHOR
8. 1. Seance as Test, or, Russian Writers at a Spiritualist Rendezvous 23
9. 2. Russian Glubbdubdrib: The Shade of False Dimitry and Russian Historical Imagination in the Age of Realism 43
10. 3. Dead Poets’ Society: Pushkin’s Shade in Russian Cultural Mythology of the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 57
11. PART TWO REALIST EXORCISM: SPIRITUALISM AND THE RUSSIAN LITERARY IMAGINATION OF THE 1860s TO 1880s
12. 4. Flickering Hands: The Spiritualist Realism of Nikolai Vagner 89
13. 5. The Middle World: The Realist Spiritualism of Saltykov-Shchedrin 107
14. 6. The Underworld: Dostoevsky’s Ontological Realism 119
15. 7. The (Dis)infection: Art and Hypnotism in Leo Tolstoy 136
16. Epilogue: The Spirit of Literature – Reflections on Leskov’s Artistic Spiritualism 156
17. Notes 165
18. Works Cited 219
19. Index 241