Vera ProskurinaDr. Vera Proskurina currently works at Emory University. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on Russian literature and the intellectual history of Russia. Her first book, Mikhail Gershenzon: his Life and Myth (1998) was devoted to the Jewish writer and thinker in the first decades of the 20th century. Her next books related to the culture & political symbolism of the 18th century: Myth of Empire: Politics and Literature in the Time of Catherine II (2006), Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II (2011), Catherine II's Empire of Letters: Literature as Politics (2017). Read More Read Less