“To knock with all voices on nature’s closed door”

Abstract

The study deals with a subject that has been largely ignored by Russian scholars of literature: the phenomenon of animalism in literature in terms of Darwin’s and Goethe’s natural philosophical ideas and their various influences on animalistic prose written for children in the 1920s–1940s. Such an influence is exemplified by works of the classic of Russian children’s literature V. Bianki, who always stayed up to date with literary thought as well as scientific theories. The term animalism was introduced by the director of Moscow’s Darwin Museum, A. Kots, in his report, Animalism in light of [the teachings of] Darwin and Goethe (1946). According to Kots, two trends dominated the post-Darwinian period of animalist art: a Darwinian animalism and its Goethe-inspired counterpart. The former implied a meticulous depiction of animal protagonists and the use of ‘rational naturalism,’ whereas the latter relied on a combination of scientific (empirical observation) and artistic (visual thinking) methods.

Fedyaeva examines Bianki’s oeuvre from the viewpoint of animalism of the latter type, noting that his portrayal of animal protagonists and their adventures is strongly defined by animal psychology.