I take issue with the premise of this article. I majored in Russian at a liberal arts college; the standard practice (which was reflected at similar schools) wa

I take issue with the premise of this article. I majored in Russian at a liberal arts college; the standard practice (which was reflected at similar schools) was to teach one survey course of 19th century literature, and one of 20th, both in translation. That way comp-lit students could take either course. There's a canonical Golden Age (mid-19th century) and Silver Age (early 20th) that is universally taught. Stalin made life easier for Russian majors by effectively destroying the intelligentsia by the 1930's, greatly reducing the amount of literature we had to study.