This issue includes four literary essays: an introductory article by Yelena Dubrovina, and three essays by Youri Mandelstamm from the archives of his granddaughter, Marie Stravinsky: ‘A Call for Metaphysics’ in Émigré Literature [ ‘Metafizicheskiy zakaz’ v emigrantskoy literature], The Fate of the Novel [Sud’ba romana] and Love in the Modern Novel [Lyubov’ v sovremennom romane].

In the late 1920s and the early 1930s, the centre of Russian cultural life moved from St. Petersburg to Paris. A human tragedy in a foreign land, with life as a constant struggle for survival, intensified the perception of the world and the interaction with the creative process, and made young émigré writers take a profound look inward. Freed from Soviet repression, their creative process was liberated. Based on numerous philosophical studies of that period, a metaphysical theme began to dominate the work of émigré writers. A new metaphysical approach, a spiritual and religious awakening are clearly traced in Russian émigré literature. The importance of such an approach was a key theme in the critical essays of Youri Mandelstamm, a Russian poet and literary critic. His inner emotional wealth and his ability to look into the core of surrounding events, his philosophical approach to life, love, religion and creative process were the essence of his work.