Authors:
Igor’ A. Vinogradov
(13 downloads)
Abstract
The essay for the frst time highlights the history of a long-term attention and patronage that Еmperor Nicholas I as philanthropist, censor, and reader
bestowed on Nikolay Gogol. It shows the increasing interest of the members of the
tsar family to Gogol’s works starting with the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka;
following the established rule, Gogol presented his just published works including
Mirgorod, The Government Inspector, Dead Souls, collected works in four volumes,
and Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends to the Emperor and his family. The essay enumerates and highlights numerous cases of awards and fnancial aid
given to Gogol by the Emperor and his family members in the 1830–1840s; Gogol’s
appeal to the Emperor concerning the censorship of The Government Inspector; his
intention to turn to the help of Nicholas I on the occasion of the censorship of Dead
Souls and republication of Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends; a
request to the tsar to issue him a passport for his pilgrimage to the Holy Land; Gogol’s plans to get a position of the educator of the heir’s son, Grand Duke Nicholas
Alexandrovich, at the end of his life. Particular emphasis is made on the fact that the
“fatherly” attitude of the sovereign towards Gogol’s writings was not always incentive; for example, alongside some other contemporaries, the Emperor disapproved of
the premiere of Gogol’s “Marriage.” In conclusion, the essay draws parallels between
the censorial history of The Government Inspector and posthumous fate of Gogol’s
works which Nicholas I, against the censor’s verdict, approved for publication shortly before his death.
Keywords: Gogol, biography, art creativity, public ideology, censorship, interpretation, hermeneutics, spiritual heritage
Authors:
Natalia N. Primochkina
(24 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines one of the most important problems of Gorky’s
work — a problem of humanism. It relates the history of creation of Gorky’s essay
“A. A. Blok” (1923) to the author’s reflections about deformation of the old and the
birth of the new humanism in post-revolutionary era. Gorky was one of the few
Blok’s contemporaries who understood the poet’s concern about the collapse of the
old humanism in the world torn by wars and revolutions. It was Gorky who listen ing to Blok’s presentation “Heine in Russia” was so affected by it that proposed to
devote a special seminar related to this theme in the department of the publishing
house “World Literature.” This seminar prompted Blok to write his famous article,
“The Collapse of Humanism” (1919).
Keywords: M. Gorky, the problem of humanism, life and work of Alexander Blok
Authors:
Darya S. Moskovskaya
(17 downloads)
Abstract
After A. M. Gorky decided to return to Moscow in 1931, he conceived
agitation-propaganda publishing series: “The History of Factories and Plants,” “The
History of the Village,” “The History of Women from Primitive Time to the Present Day,” “The History of the World’s Merchant,” “The History of the 19th Century Young Man,” “The History of the Civil War,” “The History of Culture,” “The
History of Ideas,” and “The History of the Cities.” Gorky regarded the latter as
a popular scientifc version of Gogol’s The Government Inspector and Dead Souls
and Shchedrin’s The History of a Town in that it exposed provincial burgesses and
philistinism. A special interest of writers and journalists in the recent history of
old Russian towns may be explained by the beginning of the so called reconstruction era. The organizing committee of the Soviet Writers’ Union sent out a group
of writers to old Russian provincial centers so that they register positive changes
in the regions. A literary critic N. P. Antsyferov and a writer A. A. Zolotarev wrote
their book about Yaroslavl within the framework of the Gorky project. Their feld
work discovered ancient and rich history of this Volga Region town but also inadvertently revealed the town’s social controversies. During the era of reconstruction,
the state had no interest in the historical past of the merchant’s town; the vestiges
of this past — Yaroslavl’s monuments, city-forming enterprises, institutions, and
the matching class composition of the population, historical legends, and toponymy
were being deliberately destroyed. However, as Gorky project showed, rejection of
the past had led to the dicrease in the population’s cultural level and to the development of the limited “provincial consciousness.” These catastrophic changes revealed
in the course of the project explain why not a single “story of Russian cities” was
published. Antsyferov’s and Zolotarev’s work as part of the Gorky project helps better undestand the social and psychological depth of the urban theme in Russian fction of the 1930s that we encounter in the grotesque urban representations in
Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Konstantin Vaginov Garpagoniana,
Leonid Dobychin N City, and Andrey Platonov’s The Foundation Pit and Happy
Moscow. The plots and characters of these novels are derived from the “dramatic
terrain” and from “the sick soul” (in Spengler’s terminology) of old Russian cities in
the era of socialist reconstruction.
Keywords: publishing project “History of Russian Cities as the History of Everyday Life,” urban theme, Russian fction of the 1930s, Vaginov, Gorky, Antsyferov, Zolotarev
Authors:
Kazbek K. Sultanov
(17 downloads)
Abstract
The essay examines the problem of identity in its implicit relation
to the memory of the past on the material of post-Soviet literature. The question of
identity or “how to think identity” is and has always been relevant for every national
literature. Arguing with interpretation of identity as counterpart of nostalgic traditionalism, the author stresses not only the importance of ethno-cultural context, but
also the importance of constants of non-ethnic origin such as openness, dynamism,
progressiveness, and mutual permeability of cultures in the process of self-identifcation. The role of the “still persisting past” as part of this process has been so signifcant
in a number of literary works that one can speak of a specifc temporal mode of the
way historical memory functions. A reminiscing man/woman has become a favorite
image in the literatures of the peoples of Russia. The paradigm of historical memory
bears on key symbols and stock conventional characters but often itself becomes the
catalyst for retrospective maximalism, idealization of the past, and tautology of meaning directed towards potential inexhaustibility of traumatic experience. However,
identity as well as understanding of the past cannot be reduced to such intensity and
self-sufciency of historical remembering, when the recurrence of trauma displaces
projective thinking about the future and inevitability of change.
Keywords: identity, historical memory, historical narrative, reconstruction, temporality, neo-archaization, demythologization, traumatic experience, retrospective maximalism, symbolic representation
Authors:
Tatiana V. Govenko
(16 downloads)
Abstract
German settlements in Russia have been known since the ancient
times, however larger settlements appeared only after the “Мanifesto” issued by
Empress Catherine II. Settling in Volga Region, Novorossiya, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Siberia, German colonists preserved German language, customs, traditions,
songs, tales, household items, musical instruments, costumes, and cuisine — all
those identity and ethnic codes that tied them to their historical homeland and,
at the same time, distinguished them from the neighboring nations. Autonomous
and closed character of German settlements in Russia, their long-term isolation
from their nation and its cultural and historical core as well as the impossibility of
modernization in step with their historical motherland contributed to the preservation of language and elements of the immigrant traditional culture in the alien
environment. Vegetation was carried out at the expense of inner resources and those
of the neighboring nations leading to the transformation of “the national spirit and
manners.” New sub-ethnic group of “Russian Germans” formed a considerable part
of the pre-revolutionary Russian population but at the beginning of the 20th century, due to the unfavorable political and military circumstances, the state forced
administrative sanctions on German population that led to further destruction of
the ethnic area as well as of the cultural, social, and economic conditions necessary
for its development. Later, this situation got worse due to the Stalin regime, Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, and general reluctance of the state to preserve this ethnic
group in a favorable condition. In the 1990s, Russian Germans massively resettled
in Germany. Over the past 20 years, the number of the settlers has decreased by seven times. In Germany, “Russian Germans” faced the question of self-identity. If until
the beginning of the 20th century their heritage language had been one of the German dialects, at the end of the century, Russian language and culture have become
heritage for Russian Germans. Germans living in Russia today actively integrate
with Germany compensating for the loss of their unique identity in the 20th century.
Keywords: history, culture, traditions, language of sub-ethnic group of Germans in Russia
Authors:
Olga A. Krasheninnikova
(14 downloads)
Abstract
The present publication is the frst edition of Podmetnoe pismo [Anonymous Letter] of 1732 which was considered to be lost. The appearance of the anonymous pamphlet criticizing the Holy Sinod church policy and foreign dominance in the Supreme power became a resonant event in the public life at the beginning of
Anna Ioannovna’s reign. It caused years of judicial investigation carried out by the
Secret chancellery during 1732–1738 later known as “Reshilovskoe delo.” Many
innocent people were involved in this investigation and many were convicted. The
pamphlet’s publication will help realize why this document was so dangerous for
the state power and why it caused such violent reaction in the political circles of
the time.
Keywords: Podmetnoe pismo (anonymous letter) dated by 1732, Reshilovskoe delo, Theophan Prokopovich, Anna Ioannovna
Authors:
Alessandro Farsetti
(14 downloads)
Abstract
This is the frst publication of a hitherto unknown acrostic by an
avant-garde poet, I. A. Aksenov. The poem was found in the archive of the Russian
Union of Soviet Writers (VSSP) in the Manuscript Section of the Institute of
World Literature (IWL). This poem dated 1918 is a complex example of Russian
avant-garde poetry demonstrating subtle mechanisms of meaning-making.
The essay places the poem within the context of Aksenov’s work and relates it
to his biography (cf. his friendship with a poet, K. A. Bol’shakov, to whom the
poem was dedicated and the participation of both in S. G. Kara-Murza’s literary
circle “Tuesdays”). It outlines the basic structure of the acrostic, reveals its main
linguistic devices and intertextual connections. The analysis shows that the
acrostic was thematically connected with two poems Aksenov and Bol’shakov
wrote later the same day at Kara-Murza’s house. All the three texts capture the
incubus of the Civil war (more precisely, the so called «Red terror» in the Fall of
1918) but also express hope for the return of the normal life, relying on friendship
of like-minded people. In addition to this, the essay reveals possible interrelation
between poetic techniques of Bol’shakov and Aksenov; this will enable us to
better understand the specifcity of these two understudied representatives of
Russian avant-garde.
Keywords: acrostic, I. A. Aksenov, K. A. Bol’shakov, S. G. Kara-Murza, Red terror
Authors:
Françoise Lavocat
(12 downloads)
Abstract
The author’s aim is to reconsider the difference between fact and
fiction in diachronic, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspective. The study
covers a long period, mainly from the 17th Century to the present time, drawing
on literary studies but also on law studies and cognitive science. A comparative
methodology it employs counterpoises artefacts pertaining to different times,
cultural epochs, and geographies (paying attention to the tension between the
Far East and the Western world, in particular) as well as to different media.
Considering these multiple dimensions, fiction is understood as a trans-historical, transcultural, and trans-medial phenomenon. The author defines fiction as
a possible world that has its own peculiar ontology and focuses on a cluster of
related questions including fictional characters, paradox and “metalepsis,” a rhetorical figure that reinforces the boundary between fact and fiction as it creates
the illusion of crossing it.
Keywords: Fact, fction, comparatism, possible worlds, paradox, metalepsis
Authors:
Eugenia V. Ivanova
(17 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines the development of the genre of biography and
life writing that influenced Russian biographical tradition. This tradition stems from
Plutarch’s Comparative Biographies that influenced English life writing represented
by such names as James Boswell, Lytton Strachey, and others. Philosophical
premises of the English biography genre are to be found in the treatise Heroes, HeroWorship, and The Heroic in History (1841) by Thomas Carlyle. French tradition
represented by Gaston Tissandier’s book Science Martyrs pursued the opposite
aim: to honor ordinary scientists and inventors, responsible for the technical
advance of the modern civilization. Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel practiced
a different approach to life writing in that they conceived biography as the history
of the person’s spiritual development. This conception had direct influence on the
theorists of biography genre in Russia, G. O. Vinokur, and A. G. Gabrichevsky.
Keywords: biography genre, Plutarch, James Boswell, Lytton Strachey, Thomas Carlyle, Gaston Tissandier, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel, V. O. Vinokur, A. G. Gabrichevsky
Authors:
Mikhail L. Andreev
(16 downloads)
Abstract
Goldoni’s tragicomedies while being less popular and lesser studied
than his comedies nonetheless provide us with rich material for the study of the genre’s general properties. Goldoni’s tragicomedies fall into two groups: in his plays
written in the 1730s, the author but revises conventional repertoire tradition of
commedia dell arte; in his plays of the 1750s, he makes an attempt to reform the
genre itself. The latter group forms three peculiar trilogies: passions, sincerities, and
hypocrisies. In this part of his creative work, Goldoni remains true to the study of
the character as the main object of dramatic representation. However, whereas in
comedies, the character is the major impediment to the achievement of the plotline
goals, in tragicomedies, it plays the opposite function: leads the dramatic collision
to the happy conclusion. The change of function marks the shift within the generic
framework.
Keywords: Carlo Goldoni, tragicomedy, comedy, poetics of the genre
