The two volumes of The Russian Image of Goethe constitute the only study in a Western language on Goethe's reception in Russia. Volume II is a seamless continuation of the earlier book, covering the second half of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth. Von Gronicka examines the attitudes toward Goethe and his work of, among others, Turgenev, Dostoevski, Tolstoi, and the Russian symbolists. He draws on the Russian writers' diaries, letters, and essays, quoting from them extensively in faithful translation or felicitous paraphrase.
In developing The Russian image of Goethe, von Gronicka traces the course of Russian literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and provides not only a clear idea of how Russian writers viewed Goethe, but an excellent introduction to that literature.
Both volumes of The Russian Image of Goethe are of interest to scholars of Russian, German, and comparative literature.