Problems of Literature [Voprosy Literatury]: On the journal and those by whom it was and is created

Abstract

The memoir by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal offers an insight into half a century of its history since the time (1975) when the editorial office moved to the upper floor of the famous house built in the Art Nouveau style (1906) in central Moscow, and known by the name of its architect, Nirnsee. Problems of Literature came out among the new publications established in the Thaw after the Stalin era, and, as much as possible, made an effort to retain the liberating tendency in the following decades. The foremost intellectuals brought from oblivion, like Mikhail Bakhtin, set free from prisons and camps of the big terror, like Leonid Pinsky, or just setting out on their career, like Sergey Averintsev, and many others were published in the journal. Igor Shaytanov focuses on the changes the journal went through in the years of ‘perestroika’ and in the new century when he became a member of staff, and when old editors, some of them in the journal since its birth, were leaving one after another. The young editorial staff that took over some 15 years ago, gained experience and continues the renovated tradition of the illustrious journal, deeply rooted in the Russian philological school of historical poetics and with a keen interest in present day literature and critical thought.