Reading Russian fortunes : print culture, gender and divination in Russia from 1765
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Reading Russian fortunes : print culture, gender and divination in Russia from 1765
（Cambridge studies in Russian literature）
Cambridge University Press, 1998
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-244) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Reading Russian Fortunes examines the huge popularity and cultural impact of fortune-telling among urban and literate Russians from the eighteenth century to the present. Based partly on a study of the numerous editions of little fortune-telling books, especially those devoted to dream interpretation, it documents and analyses the social history of fortune-telling in terms of class and gender, at the same time considering the function of both amateur and professional fortune-telling in a literate modernizing society. Chapters are devoted to professional fortune-tellers and their clients, and to the publishers of the books. An analysis of the relationship between urban fortune-telling and traditional oral culture, where divination played a very significant role, leads on to a discussion of the underlying reasons for the persistence of fortune-telling in modern Russian society.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. Dreambooks and other fortune-telling guides
- 2. Divination in Russian traditional culture
- 3. Readers and detractors
- 4. Printers and publishers
- 5. Women, men and domestic fortune-telling
- 6. Fortune-tellers and their clientele
- 7. Sages and prophets
- 8. Disappearance and revival
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"