Introduction: approaching Russian silences and burlesques -- Carnality and eroticism in the history of Russian literature: toward a genealogy of a discourse of silence -- Golden silences in the golden age: Russian anxieties of the body and sexuality from Gogol to Chekhov -- Silence is golden, speech is silver: corporeality, sensuality, and "pornography" in Russian literature of the silver age -- Exploring the impetus of the silver age: the evolution of discourses of carnality and eroticism in pre-revolutionary Russian literature and in emigre writing -- Nabokov's Lolita and its precursors: silver age roots and sexuality in the novel -- Joseph Brodsky's libertinage: sexual and erotic themes in his poetry -- Conclusion: Russia's "threshold of modernity" and literary representations of sexuality in the era of bio-power.