Samovars and quills:the representation of bureaucracy in mid-nineteenth-century Russian literature

Russian literature of the nineteenth century provides a valuable insight into the character of Russian society during the period. The figure of the bureaucrat, and of bureaucracy more generally, looms large in works that appeared during Russia’s golden age of literature. The idea that Russian public life was distorted by a stifling lack of initiative and high levels of corruption amongst officials was a common theme in all forms of belles-lettres. This article examines a series of literary works by major authors—ranging from Gogol and Herzen to Turgenev and Tolstoi—and suggests that each of them had their own particular insight into the problem. For most leading writers, bureaucracy was more than simply a political and administrative phenomenon: it was also rooted in more far-reaching issues relating both to Russia’s distinctive history in particular and more universal philosophical problems in general

Alone together: the strategies of autonomy and relatedness in the lives of homeless youth

This article proposes that the social lives of homeless young people are structured by two strategies: autonomy and relatedness. The strategy of autonomy is the prevailing modus operandi of homeless young people who respond to the uncertainty and instability of their lives with a defiant independence and self-reliance. However, their propensity to self-interested autonomy exacerbates a sense of isolation, alienation and loneliness, which leads to the strategy of relatedness. These strategies are responses to instability that take divergent, and even contradictory, approaches to dealing with the conditions of youth homelessness. There is a complex interaction between these two strategies, with homeless young people's social lives and the conditions of their lives structured by the seeming incompatibility of autonomy and relatedness. This article draws on ethnographic research and 12 months of participant observation to provide an understanding of the strategies of autonomy and relatedness as they pertain to the lives to homeless young people. The strategies of autonomy and relatedness capture the recurring themes and organising sentiments in the lives of homeless young people whilst still acknowledging the diverse, inventive and unlimited variety of practices enacted by this heterogeneous group of people