Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia : Debt, Property, and the Law in the Age of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy

As readers of Russian literature know, the nineteenth century was a time of pervasive financial anxiety. Russians of all classes were enmeshed in networks of credit and debt, and borrowing and lending shaped perceptions of material and moral worth. Sergei Antonov recreates this imperial world of borrowers, bankrupts, lenders, and loan sharks.