How did a country with such a tormented past bring such stunning works of art into being? To answer this question, W. Bruce Lincoln explores ten centuries of artistic endeavor in a land uniquely suspended between East and West, past and future sacred and secular Surveying art in all its forms, Between Heaven and Hell tells the stories of Russia's greatest novelists, poets, painters, composers, dancers, architects, and filmmakers as they struggled to extract beauty from their nation's painful life, and shaped the masterpieces that the world now acclaims as purely and uniquely Russian. Focusing on the artists in context, Between Heaven and Hell brings the triumph and tragedy of the Russian experience into full view. It vividly illustrates the workings of the creative process in a land in which politics and the arts have been closely intertwined. And it keenly describes the unique fashion in which Russian artists created their work through assimilating and transforming other cultural forms - giving birth to masterpieces unlike any others on earth.

Prologue -- Genesis -- Holy Moscow -- Russia's secular revolution -- The age of Elizabeth -- The arts and Catherine the Great -- Trappings of empire -- Russia's Romantic age -- The rise of realism -- The Mighty Handful and Chaikovskii -- Art in the name of the people -- Imperial twilight -- The birth of the avant-garde -- Seeking new visions -- The utopia of socialist realism -- Émigrés against utopia -- Utopia's opponents at home -- Merging currents.