Konstantin Kustanovich
Professor of Russian, Emeritus
Konstantin Kustanovich is a specialist in 20th century Russian literature and history of Russian culture. His recent book, Russian and American Cultures: Two Worlds a World Apart, explores the major factors that influenced the formation of Russian national culture and led it on a path away from Western cultures. A Russian version of this work is ready for publication in Russia. He is also the author of The Artist and the Tyrant: Vasily Aksenov's Works in the Brezhnev Era and numerous articles on Russian literature and culture.
He is the recipient of many Vanderbilt research and technological innovation grants. In 1996-7 he was a Fellow at the Robert Penn Warren Center for Humanities. In 2001-2, he taught and did research in St. Petersburg on a Fulbright scholarship.
Kustanovich started his career in the Soviet Union as a mechanical engineer. After emigrating to the United States he decided to pursue his life-long interest in Russian literature. While a graduate student in Russian studies he taught at Columbia University, Hunter College, and Brooklyn College. After one year as Visiting Assistant Professor at Lafayette College, he joined Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor in 1987 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994. Between 1984 and 1997, Kustanovich worked every summer at the Russian School of Norwich University, first as language instructor and from 1992-1997 as dean and director of the school.
Kustanovich received his MS in physics and mechanics from Leningrad Polytechnic in 1969, his MA in Russian literature from New York University in 1977; and his Ph.D. in Russian literature with a minor in Russian intellectual thought from Columbia University in 1986.
Representative Publications
Books
Russian and American Cultures: Two Worlds a World Apart. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018.
The Artist and the Tyrant: Vasily Aksenov's Works in the Brezhnev Era. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1992.
Collection
От Пастернака до Пелевина: Статьи о русской литературе ХX века в сборнике Современное гуманитарное знание как синтез наук. Невский институт языка и культуры, С.–Петербург: НИЯЗ, 2003, 6-131. (From Pasternak to Pelevin: Articles on Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century. In collection Contemporary Humanities as Synthesis of Disciplines. Nevsky Institute of Language and Culture, St. Petersburg: НИЯЗ, 2003, 6-131.) [Includes six previously published articles]
Articles
“Имплицитные выборы: эмигранты из России голосуют за Трампа.” (Implicit elections: émigrés from Russia vote for Trump.) США - Канада: экономика, политика, культура. (USA—Canada: Economics, Politics, Culture—Journal of the Institute of America and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences), 51 (2). 2021: 57-71.
“Асимметрия во взаимном восприятии Америки россиянами и России американцами.” (Asymmetry in the mutual perception of America by Russians and Russia by Americans.) Reprinted in Forum für osteuropäische Ideen und Zeitgeschichte (Форум новейшей восточноевропейской истории и культуры), 2 (2015): 104-113.
“Асимметрия во взаимном восприятии Америки россиянами и России американцами.” (Asymmetry in the mutual perception of America by Russians and Russia by Americans.) США - Канада: экономика, политика, культура. (USA—Canada: Economics, Politics, Culture—Journal of the Institute of America and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences), 10 (2014): 81-90.
“Мы и они. Практика и психология восприятия чужих культур на примере отношения россиян к Америке.” (“Us vs. Them: Practice and Psychology of the Perception of Other Cultures Exemplified by Russians’ Attitude toward America.”) In collection Актуальные проблемы современной науки. St. Petersburg: НИЯЗ, 2013, 3-46. (Expanded version of article published in USA—Canada: Economics, Politics, Culture, No. 8, 2008).
“The Russian Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Attitudes toward Work through the Eyes of Russian Literature.” In American Contributions to the 15th International Congress of Slavists, Minsk, August 2013. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2013, 13-27.
“О некоторых типах восприятия Америки россиянами.” (“On some types of perception of America by Russians.” США - Канада: экономика, политика, культура 8 (2008): 89-108. (USA—Canada: Economics, Politics, Culture—Journal of the Institute of America and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences) (Continuation of the article published in Novyi zhurnal.)
“A Hero of Bygone Time, or Russian Literature as an Ecological System in Vladimir Makanin's Underground and Other Works.” In Routes of Passage: Essays on the Fiction of Vladimir Makanin, eds. Byron Lindsey and Tatiana Spektor, 115-127. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2007.
“Америка глазами россиян: типы восприятия в ХХ веке.” (America through the eyes of Russians: types of perception in the 20th century.) Novyi zhurnal 248 (2007): 122-137.
“Vasilly Aksyonov: Literary Biography.” In Russian Prose Writers After World War II. DLB (Dictionary of Literary Biography), ed. Christine Rydel, pp. 15-34. Detroit, New York, London: Gale, 2005.
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being the Other: Myth and Nostalgia in Sotsart.” Slavonica 9:1 (2003): 3-17.
“Vladimir Sorokin: Literary Biography.” In Russian Writers Since 1980, DLB, eds. Marina Balina and Mark Lipovetsky, pp. 301-315. Detroit, New York, London: Gale, 2003.
“Два буддиста, два веселых друга: Буддизм и постмодернизм в произведениях Бориса Гребенщикова и Виктора Пелевина.” (Two Cheerful Buddhists: Buddhism and Postmodernism in the Works of Boris Grebenshchikov and Viktor Pelevin.) In In Other Words: Studies in Honor of Vadim Liapunov, eds. Stephen Blackwell, Michael Finke, Nina Perlina, and Yekaterina Vernikov. Indiana Slavic Studies 11 (2000): 407-427.
“Venichka Erofeev's Grief and Solitude: Existentialist Motifs in the Poema.” In Venedikt Erofeev's Moscow-Petushki: Critical Perspectives, ed. Karen Ryan-Hayes, 123-151. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.
“Erotic Glasnost: Sexuality in Recent Russian Literature.” World Literature Today 67 (1993): 136-144.
“The Naturalistic Tendency in Contemporary Soviet Fiction: Thematics, Poetics, Functions.” In New Directions in Soviet Literature, Selected Papers from the IV World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, ed. Sheelagh Duffin Graham, pp. 75-89. London: The Macmillan Press, 1992.
“The Two Worlds in Jurij Zhivago's Poem 'Zimnjaja noch'.' “Russian Literature XXXI-I (1992): 1-27.
“Monologue of the Anti-Hero: Trifonov and the Prose of the Last Decade.” Slavic Review 50 (1991): 978-988.
“Boris Pasternak.” In Nobel Laureates in Literature, ed. Rado Pribic, pp. 317-324. New York & London: Garland, 1990.
“Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.” In Nobel Laureates in Literature, ed. Rado Pribic, pp. 410-418. New York & London: Garland, 1990.
“Notes on Aksenov's Drama.” In Vasiliy Pavlovich Aksenov: A Writer in Quest of Himself, ed. Edward Mozejko, pp. 87-102. Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1986.
“Голый король” (The King is Naked.) In Новый Американец, 97 (1981). [Article about Eduard Limonov's Eto ia — Edichka published in Sergei Dovlatov's weekly New American, New York]
Short Articles
“Культурные ориентиры университетского образования в США (Cultural Vectors of the College Education in the USA). In collection Актуальные проблемы современной науки. St. Petersburg: НИЯЗ, 2015, 34-37.
Eight entries (“Aksenov, Vasilii Pavlovich,” “Sorokin, Vladimir Georgievich,” “Sots-Art,” “Thaw,” “Sex and Sexuality,” “Drinks, alcoholic,” “Zakuski,” “Bania”) in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture. Eds. Tatiana Smorodinskaya, Karen Evans-Romaine, and Helena Goscilo. Routledge, 2007.
“The Empire Strikes Back: Evolution of the National Idea in Nikita Mikhalkov's Movies.” In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Russian American Seminar, 246-250. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University, 2004.
Preface for Mikhail Bakhtin, Формальный метод в литературоведении. New York: Silver Age Publishing, 1982, 3-7.
“AKSYONOV, Vasily Pavlovich.” In Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, 32-33. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981.
Yuri Trifonov, The Old Man. In Ulbandus Review 1 (1978): 169-72.
Book Reviews
Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya. Locating Exiled Writers in Contemporary Russian Literature: Exiles at Home. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. In Modern Language Review 107: 4 (October 2012): 1312-1313.
Frances Lee Bernstein. The Dictatorship of Sex: Lifestyle Advice for the Soviet Masses. DeKalb, Il: Northern Illinois UP, 2007. In Slavic and East European Journal 2 (2008), 327-328.
Nadya L. Peterson. Subversive Imaginations: Fantastic Prose and the End of Soviet Literature, 1970s-1990s. In Slavic and East European Journal 42 (1998): 323-325.
Maryniak, Irena. Spirit of the Totem: Religion and Myth in Soviet Fiction 1964-1988. In The Russian Review 57 (1998): 292-293.
Yvonne Howell. Apocalyptic Realism: The Science Fiction of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. In Slavic and East European Journal 40 (1996): 568-569.
Cynthia Simmons. Their Fathers' Voice. Vassily Aksyonov, Venedikt Erofeev, Eduard Limonov, and Sasha Sokolov.” In The Russian Review 55 (1996): 112-113.
Evgeny Dobrenko, Метафора власти: Литература сталинской эпохи в историческом освещении. In Slavic and East European Journal 39 (1995): 304-305.
Nina Kolesnikoff, Yury Trifonov: A Critical Study. In The Russian Review 51 (1992): 430-31.
Jacques Rossi, Справочник по Гулагу. In South Atlantic Review 54 (1989): 164-66.