An introduction, complete in one volume, to the development of Russian literature from medieval times to the 1970s. Each chapter has been specially commissioned for this volume and the writers are noted scholars in their fields. The essays focus on the Russian language, the history of Russian writing and printing, and predominantly on the growth of a native Russian literature. This 1977 volume is unusual in combining a comprehensive study of Russian and Soviet literature with an introduction to the Russian language and an extensive treatment of Russian and Soviet drama. It is directed in part at the general reader and will also be consulted as a standard reference guide in libraries of universities, colleges, and schools wherever these subjects are read. It forms the second part of the three-volume Companion to Russian Studies, the first of which deals with Russian history, and the final part with Russian art and architecture.