Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-134-161
L. M. Borisova
{"title":"Klim Samgin and an encyclopaedic genius of the era. On Gorky’s God-building pursuit","authors":"L. M. Borisova","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-134-161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-134-161","url":null,"abstract":"Gorky’s severe and sometimes unfair criticisms (‘empty soul’) aimed at the hero of his last novel are revealed to be reflections of the writer’s adherence to empiriomonism, a philosophy that demands that an individual submit themselves to a collective genius and systemic knowledge. The article explores the precursors to the Samgin theme in Gorky’s works and the reasons the writer became attracted to A. Bogdanov’s ideas, also detailing differences in their views. The author considers the attitude of the novel’s characters to Bogdanov’s theory and the protagonist’s engagement with the dispute between ‘vperyodovtsy’ (members of the ‘Vperyod’ group, a subfaction of the Bolsheviks) and ‘vekhisty’ (followers of the ideas expressed in Landmarks [Vekhi], a collection of works by Russian liberally minded intellectuals). Gorky creates a belittling image of an individualistically-minded intellectual, portraying Samgin as a follower of the Kantian theory of genius, dismissed as obsolete by empiriomonists. The author suggests that Bogdanov’s character traits, biography and appearance make him a real-life prototype of Dmitry Samgin. A personality crisis in Gorky’s novel is also regarded in the context of the contemporary socio-cultural situation.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141373026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-87-104
D. V. Yakupova
{"title":"Wartime living of Salomėja Nėris. Lithuanian writers in Penza in 1941","authors":"D. V. Yakupova","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-87-104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-87-104","url":null,"abstract":"The article uses recently discovered memoirs to portray the everyday life of writers evacuated to Penza, including Salomėja Nėris, whose character and biographical events related to the early war period are the focus of this study. The poet’s daily life, view of current events, as well as her literary activities and family affairs are reconstructed based on the reminiscences of her husband P. Veržbilauskas. The article details the locals’ perception of the phenomenon of evacuees arriving from various Soviet republics, quoting common people as well as party bureaucrats. It investigates the creative crisis faced by the evacuated intelligentsia and their dealing with this through consolidating their writers’ community. The relevance of the study stems from the fact that the testimonies by members of artistic intelligentsia have considerable cognitive potential for reconstruction of Penza’s everyday life culture during the Great Patriotic War. The article introduces a body of archived sources subjected to scholarly analysis for the first time.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141373697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-60-74
S. Perevalova
{"title":"Evocations of Nekrasov’s trench prose in Elena Rzhevskaya’s novellas","authors":"S. Perevalova","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-60-74","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-60-74","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the unique characteristics of E. Rzhevskaya’s prose. In 1941–1945, Rzhevskaya was an army interpreter from German. In her analysis of Rzhevskaya’s biography and literary output, S. Perevalova shows the assimilation of the writer’s wartime experience in her oeuvre, which simultaneously follows the patterns of ‘lieutenant prose,’ typified by novellas of V. Nekrasov, Y. Bondarev and other contemporaries of Rzhevskaya’s, and the tradition of Russian classical writers of the 19th c. and the Silver Age. The first work of ‘lieutenant prose’ that invokes the classical tradition was V. Nekrasov’s In the Trenches of Stalingrad [V okopakh Stalingrada], a novella strongly defined by humanism and ties to classical Russian war prose. The author names Nekrasov as well as Lermontov and Blok as influences on Rzhevskaya’s creative method, her affinity with the two poets made stronger by their translations of German poetry which earned the status of classics. Thanks to her interest in Blok and Lermontov, a writer Rzhevskaya became acquainted with world culture, where German literature has long been prominently represented.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141371530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-122-133
E. Pogorelaya
{"title":"A dispute about poems and beyond","authors":"E. Pogorelaya","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-122-133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-122-133","url":null,"abstract":"The article is written in response to I. Plekhanova’s study published in the same issue of Voprosy Literatury, which calls A. Dolgareva’s poetry an undoubtedly leading phenomenon of contemporary poetry. E. Pogorelaya also acknowledges key defining characteristics of Dolgareva’s output: preference for lively colloquial language, references to personal experience and the reader’s civic stance, reliance on plots and archetypical images and motifs, as well as a leaning towards the Soviet literary tradition and Soviet past as the last era of stability and relative normalcy. Polemizing with Plekhanova and other admirers of Dolgareva’s poetry, the author points out that the backbone of her poetics is drawn from 2010s’ Internet poetry, e. g., A. Kudryasheva’s works. The author argues that Dolgareva’s free and unrestricted, if not haphazard, treatment of the language is rooted in that background and that her works share a lot of similarities with those by authors from the Internet. Therefore, Pogorelaya suggests a more critical and reflective approach to Dolgareva’s oeuvre, stressing that it is primarily written with a specific reference group in mind and mirrors the group’s emotional charge.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141374481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-186-189
E. M. Belavina
{"title":"Apollinaire, G. (2022). Zone. In Russian translations and ‘Russian mirror.’ Ed. By Y. Fridstein and O. Tsareykina. Foreword by N. Zubkov. Moscow: Tsentr knigi Rudomino. (In Russ.)","authors":"E. M. Belavina","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-186-189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-186-189","url":null,"abstract":"The review examines a publication of the poem ‘Zone,’ which counts among the most famous works by the innovative French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, in the original language and seven Russian translations, two of which were made in 2022 under the auspices of the Pushkin programme funded by the French Institute of the French Embassy in Moscow to promote book publishing. The book’s structure can baffle the reader, just like Apollinaire’s poem does. Opening with a double dedication to the 110th anniversary of the poem’s original publication and the centenary of M. Kudinov’s birth, the book then displays the original French version of ‘Zone,’ followed by the publisher’s colophon. The subsequent sections of the book seem to follow the conventional logic: N. Zubkov’s foreword discusses the unique characteristics of the French poem’s poetics and outlines the key points for a comparative analysis of the translations. The sequence of the printed translations is at odds with their chronological order, a conscious decision made by the publisher. The final section entitled ‘In the Russian mirror’ features insightful comments on the poem offered by distinguished scholars of French poetry such as N. Balashov, S. Velikovsky, Z. Kirnoze, and M. Yasnov.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141373350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-75-86
A. K. Ishanova, A. Pronin, A. V. Svyatoslavsky
{"title":"When archetypes are called up. Motifs of Kazakh folklore in the war drama Batyrs of the Steppe [Batyry stepey]","authors":"A. K. Ishanova, A. Pronin, A. V. Svyatoslavsky","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-75-86","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-75-86","url":null,"abstract":"The article studies the examples of Kazakh mythology lending the archetypes of a victorious giant and the Motherland to the film Batyrs of the Steppe [Batyry stepey], directed by G. Roshal at Alma-Ata’s Central United Film Studio. The plot centres on T. Tokhtarov’s real-life heroic deed that took place in February of 1942, whereas the parallel fairytale plotline tells the story of the batyr Tolygai, who sacrifices himself to save the people.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141374810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-162-179
A. V. Skiperskikh
{"title":"A railway modernity. Izmalkovo train station in Ivan Bunin’s work","authors":"A. V. Skiperskikh","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-162-179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-162-179","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the everyday life of Izmalkovo, a train station in Imperial Russia’s Oryol governate. Among its frequent visitors and commuters was Ivan Bunin. The writer often resided in the area and used the station’s postal and passenger services. Housed in a small and inconspicuous railway station building of the fourth rank, Izmalkovo gradually became an important logistical hub for the writer. Izmalkovo’s postmark grew increasingly familiar to prominent figures of Russian modern art and literature. Following the devastating events of 1917, life in the Russian provinces becomes perilous for those living there. The political crisis forced Bunin to move from Izmalkovo to Yelets, where he had to seek a secret sanctuary at the local notary’s house. Next, the writer was forced to flee the country. Nostalgic memories of the humble station’s chronotope haunted Bunin for the rest of his life. Using an extensive body of examples, the scholar traces the changing perception of the station in the Nobel Prize winner’s writings, from the romantic impressions of his youth to the agonizing reflections on the ‘cursed days.’","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141371173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-194-197
E. D. Botvinova
{"title":"Nayman, A. (2023). Russian Long Poem. Moscow: Alpina non-fiction. (In Russ.)","authors":"E. D. Botvinova","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-194-197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-194-197","url":null,"abstract":"Anatoly Nayman’s Russian Long Poem is devoted to six landmark works of Russian literature: opening with a discussion of I. Bogdanovich’s Dushenka, A. Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman [Medniy vsadnik], and N. Nekrasov’s Red-Nosed Frost [Moroz, Krasniy nos], the book goes on to analyze 20th-c. experimental long poems, including V. Mayakovsky’s A Cloud in Trousers [Oblako v shtanakh], A. Blok’s Dvenadtsat [The Twelve], and A. Akhmatova’s Poem without a Hero [Poema bez geroya]. The author proposes a new angle for viewing the poems, shifting the reader’s focus from preconceived interpretations to the poetics of the texts, which function primarily as a cultural rather than historical fact. Nayman’s book shows accurate appreciation of the uninterrupted tradition passed down among the poems and points out their ties with a common European context, such as C. Baudelaire’s poetry or Dante’s Divine Comedy. The author details the development of poetic writing, its form and meaning determined by cultural and historical circumstances.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141374846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-198-203
A. Y. Ovcharenko
{"title":"Smirnova, N. (2023). Literary fragment and unfinishable text: Conception and reading. Moscow: Kanon-Plyus. (In Russ.)","authors":"A. Y. Ovcharenko","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-198-203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-198-203","url":null,"abstract":"Smirnova’s book deals with an interdisciplinary topic that is complex and little researched – unfinishable works and fragment as a form of existence of a literary text, also discussing the special prominence of unfinishable works in Russian literature of the first quarter of the 20th c. The transformation of the genre and semantics of a literary fragment and unfinishable work is examined across an impressive compilation of philosophical essays and fiction that allow for analysis of the genesis of unfinishedness and unfinishableness as an artistic creed. I. Smirnova creates a dynamic representation of the literary space of the period and a systemized description of the ideas about the essence of the literary phenomena in question. Such an approach enables a more accurate definition of literary fragment and unfinishable text, while the extensive body of analyzed personalities and works of diverse genres, the author’s genuine immersion in the period, and her original and individualistic judgements and conclusions create a reliable theoretical reference for subsequent research.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141373269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Voprosy LiteraturyPub Date : 2024-06-07DOI: 10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-190-193
L. V. Egorova
{"title":"Bogdanova, O. and Vlasova, E. (2022). Andrey Sinyavsky’s ‘philological prose.’ St. Petersburg: Aleteya. (In Russ.)","authors":"L. V. Egorova","doi":"10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-190-193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-3-190-193","url":null,"abstract":"The reviewed study of A. Sinyavsky’s Strolls with Pushkin [Progulki s Pukhkinym] and In Gogol’s Shadow [V teni Gogolya] sets out to identify the principal narration strategies employed by the philologist and experimenter Sinyavsky, who in an unrestrained manner tackled the issues of the Russian studies of Pushkin and Gogol, as well as art and its functions. The book pays tribute to the writer’s unconventional philological studies: awarded a PhD at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Sinyavsky was a staff researcher at the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Gorky Institute of World Literature and a lecturer at MSU and the Moscow Art Theatre School. Sinyavsky’s narration owes its character to the use of ‘philological prose’ devices. The book’s authors successfully argue that analytical discursiveness reveals itself through the characteristics of a scholarly study: the setting of research goals, the overview of the problem’s background, the analytical method, the structural makeup of a study, and the introduction of references and footnotes. The reviewer notes that the authors’ well-argued acknowledgement of the relevance of Sinyavsky’s findings sets their book apart from other studies of the subject.","PeriodicalId":52245,"journal":{"name":"Voprosy Literatury","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141373358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}