In Russian history the twentieth century was an era of unprecedented radical transformations - changes in social systems political regimes and economic structures. A number of distinctive literary schools emerged each with their own voice specific artistic character and ideological background. As a single-volume compendium the Companion provides a new perspective on Russian literary and cultural development as it unifies both émigré literature and literature written in Russia. This volume concentrates on broad complex and diverse sources - from symbolism and revolutionary avant-garde writings to Stalinist post-Stalinist and post-Soviet prose poetry drama and émigré literature with forays into film theatre and literary policies institutions and theories. The contributors present recent scholarship on historical and cultural contexts of twentieth-century literary development and situate the most influential individual authors within these contexts including Boris Pasternak Alexander Solzhenitsyn Joseph Brodsky Osip Mandelstam Mikhail Bulgakov and Anna Akhmatova.