B. Eikhenbaum’s prose debut

Abstract

The article is devoted to B. Eikhenbaum’s earliest prose works, namely, three short stories he published in the Russkaya Molva newspaper in 1913 that have until now evaded scholarly attention. Upon his graduation from the university in 1912, Eikhenbaum begins his collaboration with the periodical Russkaya Molva, chronicling contemporary literary process with his reviews and articles on Russian literature and theatre as well as European art. In her brief characteristic of the newspaper, E. Orlova notes that, while familiar to Russian philologists, the newspaper was largely dismissed by scholars until the new millennium. Its obscurity resulted from a character assassination by Lenin, who branded it as ‘bourgeois’ and ‘nationalistic.’ The short stories printed in Russkaya Molva marked Eikhenbaum’s transition from a chronicler of the literary process to its participant. Of the three stories, one can be described as a lyric miniature, while the two others share genre similarities with a sketch or a vignette. Eikhenbaum’s signature irony equally permeates his prose and critical essays, foreshadowing his novella Along Bridges and Avenues. From an Autobiography [Po mostam i prospektam. Iz avtobiografii].