Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
The Russians and the Americans seem to benefit the most from the period in which there was this renewed focus on "nationalism". The great cultures of Western Europe... France, Britain, Spain, Italy... have already had something of a long tradition in which their cultures were seen as central. The Germans seem to have come upon the scene a bit too early. Goethe is almost more of a European writer in the tradition of the Enlightenment than a national poet. With Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in Russian and Melville, Whitman, and Emerson in the US we are confronted with great writers who embrace an expansive nationalistic myth. In Russia, this is a source of inspiration for music as well and results in a body of music unrivaled anywhere (at the time) outside of Germany.
I would avoid terms such as "better" and "best" when confronting the achievements of late 19th/early 20th century Russian literature (and music) for the simple reason that one might name any number of equally productive periods in the history of the arts. I agree with the notion that the artists were at the right place at the right time... this is always a major boon. They also had the luck to have written in an art form (the novel) which has become our dominant literary form. One might easily argue for the greater achievement of the 19th and early 20th century French and English poets or the short stories of the British, Americans, French, and Germans. To those who see the novel as the highest literary achievement, it is hard to surpass Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.