This volume offers a view of modern Russian intellectual culture as shaped by the dynamic of conversions. The individual contributions examine a rich variety of personal conversions occurring in a culture in which the written word enjoyed a privileged status and, historically, was closely linked to the sacred. However, the essays presented go beyond the original meaning of conversion as a change of religious beliefs. They address shifts in style, aesthetic outlooks, and mindsets, political and ideological transfigurations as well as religious conversions in the true sense of the term. Whether at the level of culture, society or biography, the study of conversions opens the way to profound reflections about questions of identity, cultural ruptures, and continuity. The awareness of former conversions and the possible 'convertibility' of ones own ideological, spiritual or social stance has been among the central traits of Russian intellectual culture during the last two centuries.

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Jens Herlth is Professor of Slavic Literatures at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). Christian Zehnder is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

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