Russian Literature

I discovered a "Bibliography" in Cambridge History of Russian Literature (1992) which has a list of secondary works on individual authors. In the introduction of the list, the author (Charles A. Moser) wrote: "The author-listings attempt to include as many of the writersmentioned in the body of the Cambridge History of Russian Literature as possible where there exist individual books of some worth about them.Where writers have been the subject of extensive scholarly investigation, the listing may be quite selective. Still, in a rough way the length of each author entry reflects the importance of that author in the history of Russian literature."

And then, there are 12 authors with 5 secondary works cited - making only 35 authors with 5 or more secondary works included in the Bibliography. The whole list has 160 authors.

My learning from this?

1. I have heard of the name Gogol, but didn't expect him to be so prominent in the list.

2. For the top 12 here, I haven't really heard of Pasternak, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Maiakovskii. Should pay more attention to these names when I encouter them next in my readings.

3. My name recognition of this list ends at Gor'kii - haven't heard of any of the names below him - this reflects my ignorance of Russian literature; but it also does reflect the general diffusion of "canonical" fame.