This is the essential new guide to Russian literature, combining authority and innovation in coverage ranging from medieval manuscripts to the internet and social media. With contributions from thirty-four world-leading scholars, it offers a fresh approach to literary history, not as one integral narrative but as multiple parallel histories. Each of its four strands tells a story of Russian literature according to a defined criterion: Movements, Mechanisms, Forms and Heroes. At the same time, six clusters of shorter themed essays suggest additional perspectives and criteria for further study and research. In dialogue, these histories invite a multiplicity of readings, both within and across the narrative strands. In an age of shifting perspectives on Russia, and on national literatures more widely, this open but easily navigable volume enables readers to engage with both traditional literary concerns and radical re-conceptualisations of Russian history and culture. Authoritative yet innovative, this is the essential new guide to Russian literature from medieval manuscripts to social media. Simon Franklin is Emeritus Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. His recent books include The Russian Graphosphere, 1450–1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2019), winner of the ASEEES/USC Prize for an outstanding monograph in literary and cultural studies, and Information and Empire: Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600–1850 (coedited with Katherine Bowers, 2017). Rebecca Reich is Associate Professor of Russian Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin (2018), which won the prize for Best First Book from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. She is also Consultant Editor for Russia and East-Central Europe at the Times Literary Supplement. Emma Widdis is Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her publications include Socialist Senses: Film, Feeling and the Soviet Subject (2017), National Identity in Russian Culture (coedited with Simon Franklin, Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Visions of a New Land (2013).