Amanda Brickell Bellows, "American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination" (UNC Press, 2020)

New Books in African American Studies · Mar 10, 2021 · 31m

This ambitious work explores the literary and cultural production about Russian peasants and African Americans in the post-emancipation period. Brickell Bellows draws on visual images from advertisements to oil paintings as well as novellas, novels, pamphlets, and reports in English and Russian. The abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861 and American slavery in 1865 transformed both nations as Russian peasants and African Americans gained new rights as subjects and citizens. During the second half of the long nineteenth century, Americans and Russians responded to these societal transformations…