This chapter considers the Russian Symbolist movement as an alternative to the utilitarian-populist literary edifice in addressing the socio-political problems that confronted Russia at the turn of the twentieth century. The chapter traces the growth of the Symbolist movement over its two phases, beginning with the searching attempts of the first generation of Symbolists – especially Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, Zinaida Gippius, and Fedor Sologub – to turn a secular culture in the direction of spirituality and religion; and then the ambitious “theurgical” activist partnership of the second generation of Symbolists – Aleksandr Blok, Andrei Belyi, and Viacheslav Ivanov – who rose to prominence during the politically tumultuous age of the fin de siècle (the decade surrounding the revolution of 1905), an era galvanised by a pervasive sense of disorientation, groundlessness, experimentation, and apocalyptic presentiment.

This chapter provides an introduction to Russian literature in the Modernist and avant-garde period, stretching from about 1890 to 1930. This period was one of extraordinary experimentation in Russian literature and the chapter outlines the differences between the key movements that emerged and their leading practitioners, including Symbolism (Aleksandr Blok), Futurism (Vladimir Maiakovskii, Velimir Khlebnikov), and Acmeism (Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam). It highlights the inextricable links between literature and politics in this period, especially following the Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks take power and establish the Soviet Union. While the early 1920s witnessed a genuine debate among writers about what the new Soviet literature would look like, this diversity vanished by the end of the decade as centralisation took hold. By the 1930s, Socialist Realism had become the only approved official aesthetic. The chapter concludes with remarks about the Modernists’ legacy within and beyond Russia.

Despite mixed reactions to the first performance of Carmen on the Russian stage in 1878 in Saint-Petersburg, it rapidly became an indispensable part of the country’s operatic repertoire.

After the Revolution, the popularity of Carmen transcended the stage, lending its name to new perfumes and the Toreador’s tune to the ‘March of the Working-Peasants Army’. In theatre, meanwhile, new trends were aligning the opera with the tastes of proletarian audiences. Seemingly embodying the ideological triangle of realism, narodnost (closeness to the ‘people’) and – by some selective argumentation – optimism, Carmen provided a benchmark for new Soviet opera.

With Carmen’s popularity came the abstraction of the heroine from the operatic context. Borrowing from Shakespeare studies and the concept of ‘Hamletism’, this chapter will coin the term ‘Carmenism’ to refer to the tendency to interpret Carmen as a symbol, which in turn influences the interpretation of Carmen the opera, and thus keeps the music and its source alive for the appropriating nation or era. Through the prism of ‘Carmenism’ and using representative case studies, this chapter seeks to demonstrate how the various Russian/Soviet adaptations not only reflected the socio-political context of the country but also had a role in forming that culture.