Soboleva Olga, Wrenn Angus. From Orientalism to Cultural Capital: The Myth of Russia in British Literature of the 1920s

Bern – Berlin – Bruxelles – Frankfurt am Main – New York – Oxford – Wien: Peter Lang, 2017. — xiv+ 337 p. — ISBN: 978-3-0343-2203-4 ; ISBN: 978-1-78707-394-4; ISBN: 978-1-78707-395-1; ISBN: 978-1-78707-396-8.From Orientalism to Cultural Capital presents a fascinating account of the wave of Russophilia that pervaded British literary culture in the early twentieth century. The authors bring a new approach to the study of this period, exploring the literary phenomenon through two theoretical models from the social sciences: Orientalism and the notion of «cultural capital» associated with Pierre Bourdieu. Examining the responses of leading literary practitioners who had a significant impact on the institutional transmission of Russian culture, they reassess the mechanics of cultural dialogism, mediation and exchange, casting new light on British perceptions of modernism as a transcultural artistic movement and the ways in which the literary interaction with the myth of Russia shaped and intensified these cultural views.