The concept of personal attitude. On the books of the series ‘The Lives of Renowned People’ [‘ZhIL’]

Abstract

   An extensive review of the writers’ biographies published in the years 2024–2025 in a new dedicated series ‘The Lives of Renowned People’ [‘ZhIL,’ or ‘Zhizn izvestnykh lyudey’], a project of Elena Shubina Imprint [Redaktsiya Eleny Shubinoy] conceived as an alternative to the scholarly biographical series ‘The Lives of Remarkable People’ [‘ZhZL,’ or ‘Zhizn zamechatelnykh lyudey’]. Authored by suo jure writers, the new books have celebrities, often writers, as their main subject. As such, they are supposed to be faster-paced, smaller in volume, and avoid overwhelming their readers with too much biographical information and literary-critical analysis in contrast to ‘ZhZL’ publications. In her review of the first ‘ZhIL’-style books penned by the contemporary writers, R. Senchin, P. Basinsky, and D. Vodennikov, the critic treats them first and foremost as novelized biographies. She finds that all three are defined by the concept of distinct personal attitude. V. Vasilieva argues that each of the biographers writing about A. Tinyakov, L. Andreyev, and I. Bunin, respectively, searches the protagonist’s life story for answers to questions they had been struggling with for years, as well as for parallels with their own personality.