Fame or Oblivion?: Russian Creativity in the Arts and Sciences

Russians are a very creative people. Their contributions in literature and poetry alone are world treasures: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Akhmatova, Babel, Nabokov, Pasternak. However, this creativity has flowed in narrow rivers, not broad seas, and has been fulfilled in some areas but not in others. Many creative Russians have been forgotten. Why have Russians produced such brilliant and famous works in literature, music, and the arts, and yet so few internationally known works in other areas of creative activity, such as commercial technology? This book is an attempt to explain these striking differences: the blossoming and recognition of Russian creativity in some areas and its failure to be appreciated in others, including the surprising effects of repression and censorship on the success of creative endeavors.