This book elaborates the origins of the famed Russian style and celebrates the seminal role that Fedor Solnstsev plays in its development, thus rescuing from near obscurity this pioneer in the arts of the nineteenth century and in the formation of the defining image of Imperial Russia.

Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, Ph.D (1971), Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, is Professor History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and chair of the department at Baruch. She has published widely on Russian history and culture of the 18th and 19th centuries.