Abstract

A 2001 book by Russian scholar Alexander Etkind, Tolkovaniye puteshestviy: Rosstya i Amerika v travelogakh i intertekstakh ("The Interpretation of Travels: Russia and America in Travelogues and Intertexts"), examines cross-cultural influences between Russia and America. One chapter is a study of two refugees from totalitarian regimes who became prominent in American intellectual life: Ayn Rand and Hannah Arendt. One of the first analyses of Rand's work to appear in Russian literary criticism, it briefly examines Rand's principal novels and a summary of her philosophy with a special focus on the influence of her Soviet background on her thought