As I mentioned at the very beginning of this book, Bakhtin’s reception was completely out of joint. Although there were a few reviews of Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art shortly after it was published, the arrest of its author made public discussion of his work impossible. Contrary to myth, Bakhtin did not disappear from view entirely after that: his lectures at the Gorky Institute in 1940 and 1941 were discussed and his dissertation defence generated a long and serious conversation. But reception was limited to public, oral events – there were no written works to be dissected and evaluated, until the campaign for Bakhtin’s rehabilitation began in the early 1960s.