Reception of Proust in Russia in the 1920s

The article traces the history of the reception of Marcel Proust’s works in Russia, which began in the 1920s. The problem of studying the perception of Proust’s literary heritage, which has not yet been fully investigated, is of particular importance, since it allows us to touch upon a number of important issues of theoretical and historical-literary plans. Proust as an object of research is chosen here not by chance. In the world literary space there are special constant values, which, if to compare with various artistic phenomena, allows us to understand their artistic value, to follow the change of axiological parameters that determine the state of a particular stage of the literary process and to identify the main directions of development in it. Reception in the Russian culture works by Proust, which, of course, is one of such values, deserves special attention and study, since it reveals important moments not only in the creative activity of the French writer, but also in the development of Russian fiction and literary criticism. Based on the analysis of numerous documentary evidences contained in periodicals (“The Modern West,” “The Press and the Revolution,” “On a literary post,” etc.), theoretical and literary-critical works of authoritative literary critics (N.Y. Berkovsky, V.V. Weidle, B.A. Griftsov, A.K. Voronsky, etc.), in the statements of famous writers (O.E. Mandelstam, V.V. Mayakovsky, Y.K. Olesha, I. Ilf and E. Petrov), research reveals how the attitude to the works by Proust in the specified period of Soviet literature development, which is characterized by the coexistence and confrontation of various schools and trends (“Forge,” “Pass,” RAPP, LEF, etc.), helps to clarify their aesthetic orientation.