Russians have often been characterized as people with souls rather than selves. This text challenges the portrayal of the Russian character as selfless, self-effacing or self-torturing by exploring the texts through which Russians have defined themselves as private persons and shaped their relation to the cultural community. The stories of self under consideration reflect the perspectives of men and women across 200 years, ranging from Westernized nobles to simple peasants, from such famous people as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Akhmatova and Nicholas II, to lowly religious scholars. Fifteen historians and literary scholars situate the narratives of self in their historical context and show how, since the 18th century, Russians have used expressive genres - including diaries, novels, medical case studies, films, letters and theatre - to make political and moral statements. The work contemplates the shifting historical manifestations of identity, the strategies of self-creation and the diversity of narrative forms. Its authors establish that there is a history of the individual in Russian culture roughly analogous to the one associated with the West.