Abstract

The two volumes of letters by Mikhail Lifschitz, recently published in Russian, reveal for the first time certain aspects of his relationship with György Lukács and his general intellectual and cultural role in the long history of Soviet aesthetics. The first volume contains all the known letters between Lifschitz and Lukács; the second volume contains the letters from Lifschitz to three of his younger colleagues. Both volumes throw considerable light on the development of Marxist aesthetics in the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1980s. The extensive commentaries and notes provide context for the various discussions in the letters and situate the main issues under consideration within the wider historical and social context of the period.