Authors:
O.А. Bogdanova
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(20 downloads)
Abstract
The article demonstrates how Dmitry Merezhkovsky, in his novel The Fourteenth of The article demonstrates how Dmitry Merezhkovsky, in his novel The Fourteenth of December written in the midst of the revolutionary crisis in Russia and based on the history of the Decembrists revolt, attempts to give a historiosophical understanding of the October Revolution. The article also reconstructs Merezhkovsky’s revolutionary mythoideology developed in 1905–1917 and analyzes modification it underwent after October 1917. According to Merezhkovsky, not only was the Decembrists revolt in 1825 the first attempt of political revolution in Russia but it also defined the dual nature of Russian revolutionism as such. His own post-revolutionary experience enabled Merezhkovsky to make the following revisions in his idea of revolution. The people had become the “Beast” in 1917 instead of the Tsar. Bolshevism proved to be the “autocracy in reverse.” While in February there was still a glimpse of hope that revolutionary forces would unite, the October Revolution split this unity in question into “revolutionary democracy” (a new autocratic union of the people and the Bolsheviks) and “revolutionary aristocracy” (intelligentsia as a bearer of the ideals of freedom and Christian values). The traditional unity of the people and the “land” no longer existed: the people had betrayed their homeland, mother-land, Russia. Yet Merezhkovsky believed that Russia would not perish since it is larger than the people; it is also the land. The essay specificaly focuses on the way the author dis-identifies the notions of “the people” and “the land” in the wake of current political cataclysms.
Keywords: Dmitry S. Merezhkovsky, a trilogyThe Kingdom of the Beast, a novel The FourteenthDmitry S. Merezhkovsky, a trilogyThe Kingdom of the Beast, a novel The Fourteenth of December, October Revolution, February, October, mythoideology, land, the people
Authors:
N.R. Neiman
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(18 downloads)
Abstract
The article discusses the theory and history of literary translation in the Soviet Union,
namely, the dispute between Moscow and St. Petersburg schools of translation. The
main focus is on the chapter from an unfinished Doctorate thesis by a Soviet translator
and translation studies theorist V.Ye. Shor (1917–1971). The thesis entitled How Many
Types of Translation Exist? was turned down by the editors of major academic collections
in the field. Shor opposed ideas supported by the school of I. Kashkin though he did it
indirectly, by criticizing Vachtin, a scholar who did not belong to the Moscow school of
translation. Shor argued against dividing translation into types claiming that the type of
translation should be determined by the original. Instead, he proposed a unified universal principle that would define the quality criteria of a translation, substantiate the necessity of translator’s creativity, and at the same time adequately render ideas and images
of the original in the language of translation. This paper shows how fierce discussions
between the acolytes of these two schools influenced the decision to reject Shor’s paper
that fostered ideas not corresponding with the mainstream lines in translation studies
of the 1960-s.
Keywords: literary translation, theory and history of translation in the USSR, translation types, word for word translation, loose translation, scientific translation, St. Petersburg school of translation
Authors:
N.V. Nalegach
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(17 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines the image of flowers / flower in the poetry by Innokenty Annensky due to the high relevance of floral imagery in his work. It analyzes 22 poems chosen
in accordance with the specific way the poet presented his poems to the reader based
on the principle of the “ensemble.” Relying on the methodology of literary history and
employing the analysis of poetic cyclization, the paper first examines two poetical collections, Quiet Songs (1904) and Cypress Chest (1910), and then turns to the poems that
were not included in those, in order to distinguish between mainstream and peripheral
meanings in his poetical world. The semantics of Annensky’s poems draws on literary
and popular traditions, both Russian and European, conceived as the solid mental space
in his poetical system. At the same time, floral images in his poems often form unusual
combinations such as steel color flowers — flies, flowers in the crystal — sparks from the
hammer, etc. that show semantic shifts and original interpretation of poetic formulas.
The floral imagery contributes to the development of such recurrent themes in Annensky’s poetry as love, beauty, doom, passion, inspiration, remembrance, duality, death,
and resurrection. The article thus demonstrates the key role of floral images in the expression of the poet’s aesthetic view of the nature of Beauty in its different realms and
contexts: real life, art, and the transcendent.
Keywords: flower, image, Innokenty Annensky, poetry, lyrics
Authors:
Yu.G. Khazankovich
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(17 downloads)
Abstract
The essay bears on Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of chronotope as “the gate” to “the sphere
of meanings.” Without this methodological tool, it would be difficult to understand a
national literature that is archetypal at its core. Fiction of the indigenous peoples of the
North — Mansi, Khanty, Nenets, Evens, Evenks, Yukaghirs, Nivkhs, Chukchi, Nanais,
etc. — is unique due to its specific chronotope that makes it strikingly different from the
Russian literature that had nurtured the former. Systematic approach allows reveal the
specificity of fictional time and space and the specific ways chronotope functions in the
prosaic works of the North. The chronotopic aspect of the Northern fiction draws from
the peculiar understanding of art and life and the national worldview of the Northern
author. Most of the fictional characters are subject to the laws of their “own” space and
measure everything with the measure of nature and race. Owing to this fact, the analysis
of fictional time and space helps us understand the “obscure” characters that represent
the national consciousness and trace hitherto unstudied chronotope formations of the
Northern literature such as: chronotope of the nomad, chronotope of man and woman,
chronotope of the road, chronotope of the fishery and hunting, chronotope of the elderly
person, etc. The essay eventually demonstrates that mythology forms the basis of the
literatures of small ethnic groups.
Keywords: literature of small ethnic groups of the North, culture of the peoples of the North, Nivkh literature, Mansi literature, Khanty literature, fictional time and space, chronotope, novel, story
Authors:
A.T. Sibgatullina
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(14 downloads)
Abstract
This article analyzes the search for the national and confessional identity of Tatar
and Turkish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and identifies similarities
and differences in their understanding of Westernization and modernization. The compatibility of the Muslim East with the Christian West became an acute problem for the
ummah that realized the need for progressive changes in the society. Tatar and Turkish
literature openly criticized one-sidedness and infatuation with external signs of Westernization and borrowing of the European way of life that was called lafranga, which was
opposed to the traditional way of life laturca. In literature, this confrontation was reflected in the conflict between the “old” and the “new” generations. Describing the achievements of the Western culture, writers had to take into account the realities, morals and
values of their society, the role of religion and traditions, the ethics and obligations of
men and women in everyday life. Therefore, the authors of novels and stories created
images, events and spaces that reflected the ethics and values of their society, where
relations between men and women had a very different format than in the West. Incompleteness of modernization process and only partial “Europeanisation” of the Muslim
society gave rise to a special type of people who found themselves between two fires —
between the Eastern and Western cultural values — and who eventually became neither
a European nor an Asian.
Keywords: identity, Tatar literature, Turkish literature, East, West, lafranga, laturca
Authors:
L.V. Fadeeva
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(18 downloads)
Abstract
The article examines the influence of Christian iconography on poetic images of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian spiritual verses. It claims that the icons that symbolize
the Passion of Jesus Christ, both in the Western and Eastern European traditions, are
possible sources of images and plots for a spiritual verse “Walking of the Virgin” (“Three
Tombs”). The essay specifically focuses on the image of the Holy Sepulcher in Russian
spiritual verse and its iconographic sources. It discusses a number of cases from the
history of its iconography, from the images of the Holy Sepulcher in the Medieval Catholic churches to the ones in the Orthodox cathedrals and churches of the second half of
17th — the beginning of the 18th century. In spiritual verse, the notion of the “tomb in
the church” as part of liturgical practice was related not only to death symbolism. In the
verse “Walking of the Virgin,” the image of three tombs, and primarily the tomb of the
Virgin, bears on the Western-European poetic tradition and includes images that function to deny the idea of the finitude of human existence and reaffirm the idea of eternal
life. Flowers and birds over the tomb of the Virgin are emblematic: it is a verbal icon of a
kind that corresponds with the final episode of the poem, its climax. This emblem refers
to conventional images of the Christian iconography that convey Christian dogmas via a
combination of contradictory elements that we see, for example, in the traditional image
of the Flourishing Cross.
Keywords: imagery of the Passions of Christ in Christian art and folklore, liturgical symbols, icons, spiritual verse
Authors:
Е.G. Paderina
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(16 downloads)
Abstract
This article focuses on the problems around the exact dating of the final edition of Gogol’s play The Letigation read aloud by the author in house of Aksakov on his first return
to Russia from abroad (1839–1840). Gogol’s reading is famous for a peculiar hoax: the
author did not declare his intention to read the piece, so the listeners took hiccups of
his fictional character for his own. Many remembered the incident but the notes of the
memorialists on the date of the incident diverge. S.T. Aksakov mentions March 8, 1840
and I.I. Panaev — Summer of 1839. As the episode has not been hitherto dated, Gogol
commentators put forward various conjectures about who of the memorialists made a
mistake. Besides using all available biographical, epistolary, and memoir data for the
analysis of this discrepancy, the author of the paper turns to the results of the textological research of Litigation and typological comparison of Aksakov’s and Panaev’s memoirs. Both had different goals and generic intentions and thereby we observe a different
balance between facts and fiction in the memoirs of each. Aksakov made chronological
records of his communication with Gogol that were too premature to publish. Panaev
wrote for the upcoming issues of the journal Contemporary and was concerned with entertaining his audience. Analysis of the entire complex of existing data allows date Gogol’s hoax and, consequently, the final edition of the play by March 1840.
Keywords: Gogol, Aksakov, Panaev, commentary, memoir genre, polite literature, dating
Authors:
E.Yu. Kulikova
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(13 downloads)
Abstract
The article was prepared with the support of the Russian Foundation for The article was prepared with the support of the Russian Foundation for Humanities; project no № 16-04-00268: “Siberian avant-garde of the 1920s — 1930s: a newspaper, an almanac, a collection.”
Keywords: FATES AND BIOGRAPHIES, THE AVANT‑GARDE ERA
Authors:
L.A. Kolobaeva
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(17 downloads)
Abstract
No Abstract
Keywords: ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE, DMITRY MEREZHKOVSKY, WARSAW
Authors:
N.Yu. Kharitonova
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(17 downloads)
Abstract
No Abstract
Keywords: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN, EIGHTY YEARS SINCE
Authors:
А.V. Gevorkyan
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 2
(14 downloads)
Abstract
No Abstract
Keywords: FOREWORD, THE ANNIVERSARY
Authors:
M.E. Malikova
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 3
(20 downloads)
Abstract
The first part of the article describes the phenomenon of “philological translation” in the Soviet culture of the 1930s and, in particular, translations of the 18 th century English novels by Adrian A. Frankovsky. Within the Soviet culture with its dominating Marxist discourse, “idealistic” philosophical-aesthetic foundations of philological translation were absent from critical reviews or translators’ paratexts. However, these concepts were well familiar to translators from the university philosophical and philological habitus, to which Frankovsky also belonged, and were presented in a number of theoretical and historical works on translation authored by such university professors as Fyodor D. Batyushkov, Mikhail P. Alexeev, and Alexandеr M. Finkel’. Their brief overview allows to trace the ori gins of Frankovsky’s concept of translation. The second part of the article is based on the draft materials preserved in Frankovsky’s archive (Manuscript Department of Pushkin House, Fund 132). Their analysis allows to demonstrate Frankovsky’s individual orientation within the field of philological translation. Frankovsky was focused on literal reproduction of the foreign syntax in the Russian language and thus endeavored to construct a more intellectual, rational, “European” Russian language. There are also striking parallels between Frankovsky’s interest in humor as the dominant of the early English novel and his conveyance of indirect speech (as it was analyzed within German linguistic school of Carl Vossler) with similar interests of Mikhail M. Bakhtin at the same time. This allows us to place Frankovsky’s translations within the cultural context that remained unnoticed by his contemporaries.
Keywords: philological translation, Soviet culture of the 1930s, actuality of translating classics
Authors:
T.V. Kudryavtseva
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 3
(20 downloads)
Abstract
The article discusses dynamic interaction among artistic communities (trends,
movements, etc.) exploring the specificity of literary space in Germany at the turn of the
19th and 20th centuries. This is a comparative study that develops a historical and contextual
approach and pays special attention to the panoramic overview of the literary process
shaped by philosophical and aesthetic ideas of modernism. The essay exposes complex
mechanisms of interaction of various artistic schools and trends, and traces transformation
of the old and emergence of the new generic and stylistic, constructs against the background
of permanently turbulent, typological, and etymological shifts of the transition era.
Keywords: German literature, modernism, trend, style, transformation
Authors:
T.N. Krasavchenko
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 3
(17 downloads)
Abstract
It seems that T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) and Ted Hughes (1930–1998) are poets of
different individual talents and epochs. Hughes, a poet of the second half of the 20th
century, concentrated on the conflict between Nature and the human being destroying
Nature and thus preparing the end of the humanity. T.S. Eliot was a poet of urban
civilization, a reformer of the Anglophone modernist poetry. In his days, the “poetry
of Nature” rooted in the pastoral poetry of the 17th–18th centuries and in Romanticism,
existed but only at the margins of mainstream poetic trends. Nevertheless, one can find it
even in Eliot’s poetry, particularly in his Landscapes — poems written at the beginning of
the 1930s. Also, both Eliot and Hughes were modernists. Eliot standing at the beginning
of modernism, Hughes at its end; though the latter lived in the time of postmodernism,
he was not a postmodernist himself since he was not engaged in the deconstruction
and fragmentation of the “world model.” Like Eliot, he was a poet with integral
Weltanschauung and a bright individual talent. Like Eliot, he was a traditionalist, though
Eliot being an American was a “conscious traditionalist,” while Hughes, an Englishman,
was most likely a “born” traditionalist: instead of deconstructing tradition, he was
bearing on it. His “great tradition” included Shakespeare, Blake, Coleridge, Kipling,
Graves, and Dylan Thomas. Both Eliot and Hughes are poets of eschatological trend and
mythologists. However, one will not find Eliot among the authorities enlisted by Hughes
in his “great tradition.” In the time of Hughes, Eliot was rejected due to the regular
change of mainstreams trends. British poetry in the second half of the 20th century is
“tired” of urban poetry, of “Nature denial,” so it comes back to its track, and the motives
that existed in Eliot’s poetry only in the background are now brought to the forefront.
Keywords: British poetry, modernism, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, mainstream, traditionalism, postmodernism
Authors:
M.L. Andreev
Year: 2017,
Volume: 2,
Number: 3
(17 downloads)
Abstract
The article deals with a special type of drama specified by Corneille himself as heroic comedy. The playwright placed it somewhere in between two major types of drama,
comedy and tragedy, and at the same time distinguished it from tragicomedy that was at
the peak of fashion at the beginning of Corneille’s literary career. A typical tragicomedy
of the first half of the 17th century derived either from comedy with the added tragic intonations and overtones or tragedy with various comic figures and situations introduced.
The article demonstrates that Corneille practiced a more complex way of uniting different genres. From tragedies, he takes a conflict with parental power (euphemistically
represented as a state power) but deprives it of its usual tragic severity and ambiguity.
As a result, generic characteristics acquire a new meaning while heroic comedy, rather
than a combination of elements of different genres, becomes a synthetic new genre in
its own right.
Keywords: Pierre Corneille, tragicomedy, comedy, tragedy, the poetics of the genre
