The author seeks to destroy the myth surrounding the personality of Mikhail Katkov, one of Russia’s most prominent thinkers and journalists, who defended the Russian imperial ideology, believing it to have descended from European views to take root in the local culture. The author invokes two major figures of Russian history and culture: Peter the Great and the poet Aleksandr Pushkin. Katkov argued that Russia owed its successful integration into European history to Peter the Great, who transformed the country into a powerful empire and created an independent space for spiritual experiments. So it no longer seems accidental that Pushkin was referred to as ‘the singer of the empire and freedom’. It was for that reason that Katkov jumps to the defence of the Russian empire, fearlessly opposing the government, no less, who, he thought, had lost touch with reality. Eventually, Katkov was fighting two enemies: Russian nihilists (with Herzen in the lead), who wasted no time undermining the empire, and Russian liberals, who would stop at nothing, even welcome a foreign invasion, in order to bring down the empire (the so-called ‘Polish intrigue’). The author sets out to reconstruct the writer’s true image through his work.

The article polemicizes about the state of Russian Postmodernist culture in general and the country’s Postmodernist literature, in particular. The author finds that contemporary culture exists at the intersection of two paradigms: a dwindling Postmodernism and a nascent Metamodernism, giving rise to new literary vectors and phenomena. Mass culture appropriates Postmodernist methods and techniques: irony, intertextuality, and play-mode rethinking of classical subjects and ideas. The author observes a transformation of Postmodernism into an assembly line for mass production and consumption. At the same time, Metamodernism inevitably becomes an alternative cultural paradigm. Analyzing the cultural situation, the author references works by the writer V. Pelevin (his novels Generation P, iPhuck 10), rapper poet Oxxxymiron (M. Fyodorov), and other prominent figures of modern Russian culture. The article’s major focus is on Postmodernist irony.

In her article devoted to the 2018 publication of selected works entitled Psalms and Fugues [Psalmy i fugi] by the poet and translator Sergey Petrov, the author analyzes the poet’s artistic method and worldview. Key to understanding his work is the figure of the protopope Avvakum, who exercises a preeminent influence on Petrov’s language and with whom he may identify himself. He appears to have inherited Avvakum’s taste for the archaic and unabated verbal self-flagellation, as well as the incessant urge to challenge common rules and accepted facts. According to the author, Petrov emerges as a doubting Avvakum of his time, when any thinking individual has nobody but God to put his faith in: that, and world art, which Petrov worshipped with his translations of skaldic verse. Along with the ‘Avvakum’ allusion, the author examines Petrov’s principal poetic methods, trying to explain the reasons for the unusual form and rather complex meaning of the poems composed by one of the most interesting yet unjustly obscure poets.

Devoted to the works of the writer A. Goldstein, the paper focuses on his innovative form of novel: the chaos novel. Fundamental for any novel as a genre, the structuralized concept of history appears as a quality of the discursive, narrative, and poetic chaos itself: not in spite of it, or as its source, but specifically as its quality and manifestation. Describing the ‘chaos’ of Goldstein’s novels, especially his most famous work Remember Famagusta [Pomni o Famaguste], the author uses the term ‘dissipative’ to define its chaotic and simultaneously deterministic structure: he finds it the best term to characterize the author’s writing method. Taking into account the novel’s numerous critical reviews, he comes up with the most detailed analysis of Goldstein’s ‘continuous writing’, which, the critic believes, proves that the development of complex chaotic-deterministic systems of the novel remains one of modern literature’s most vital tasks.

The article is concerned with the works of S. Gandlevsky and analyzes his selected poems collection Rust and Yellowness [Rzhavchina i zheltizna] (2017). Quoting and conducting an ‘image-by-image’ and ‘plot-by-plot’ examination of Gandlevsky’s best known poems (including ‘To find a job at a motor pool’ [‘Ustroitsya na avtobazu…’], ‘On the Death of I. B.’ [‘Na smert’ I. B.’], ‘Something about the jail and separation…’ [‘Chto-nibud’ o tyurme i razluke…’], etc.), the author summarizes the basis of his poetics: the generous use of cento, oxymoron, a plot that centres around a lyrical hero, a ballad-like quality, as well as a combination of the highbrow and the vulgar, and of the classical and the profane in vocabulary and semantics. Without claiming to have discovered something new about the poet, the article provides a valuable summary, a digest of the main reviews of his work and a critical essence of the key motifs of Gandlevsky’s prose and poetry contributing to Moscow text in Russian literature. In addition, Safronova tries to establish the place occupied by the poetics of the Moscow Time [Moskovskoe Vremya] group in general, and its star member Gandlevsky in particular, with today’s readership.

The article provides an extensive commentary of V. Khlebnikov’s poem Easter in Ansali [Paskha v Enzeli ]. The author discovers and analyses two major plotlines: a documentary (or autobiographical) one and a Stepan Razin-inspired one, both developed in parallel to each other in terms of the metaphors chosen for the poem. The documentary level is concerned with Khlebnikov’s visit to Persia, on board of the steamboat Kursk (hence the poem’s numerous mentions of kursky, korskoye), while the covert, Razin-related level transpires as a memory of the captive Persian girl: in 1669, Razin’s fleet defeated the Persians, and took various spoils, including, as legend has it, a daughter of the commander of the Shakh’s fleet. It is this girl who is mentioned in the folk song ‘From beyond the island towards the river’s widest flow’ [‘Iz-za ostrova na strezhen’], quoted in Khlebnikov’s poem. By bringing together the poem’s two levels through a commentary about several memorable metaphors (like ‘the Zorgam gorge’, ‘the dark unruly hair’, as well as comparing Razin to a nightingale), the author reveals that the lyrical hero identifies himself with Razin, who appears as the former’s lyrical doppelganger as well as the poet’s alter ego.

The article polemicizes with P. Ryzhakov’s review appearing in the same issue. Citing a wider context of Khlebnikov’s work, the author challenges Ryzhakov’s thesis about the identification of the lyrical hero in Easter in Ansali [Paskha v Enzeli ] with Razin, and offers an alternative, more restrained, interpretation. He argues that the critic is mistaken in associating the protagonist with the antagonist: indeed, the Razin reference is there, but it is fragmentary and marginal, while the main idea of the poem is Khlebnikov breaking away from his past. And this parting is metaphorically described as taking monastic vows and tonsuring, hence the image of the long unruly hair and a number of biblical associations, including the ritualistic washing of the feet. Pavlovsky suggests that Ryzhakov’s analysis, while academically accurate and interesting, misses the point: the poem is about Khlebnikov, not Razin.

The article offers a close look at Bella Akhmadulina’s poetic dedications to her contemporaries: A. Akhmatova, B. Pasternak, A. Bitov, V. Vysotsky, A. Kushner, and B. Okudzhava. The scholars employ two methods: a bibliographical and a philological one. The former helps to reconstruct the context for Akhmadulina’s interactions with her predecessors and her Sixtiers peers, while the latter, applied to her texts, shows the way in which the dedicatee’s personality and their ties to Moscow or St. Petersburg determine the poem’s metaphors and intonation. A detailed analysis of her dedications to friends and older poets reveals customized, dedicatee-driven communication strategies, as well as invariant features of the poetic dialogue between Akhmadulina and a whole of Russian literature.

A publication of the responses written by B. Chichibabin to questions listed in a questionnaire offered to him at the Lermontov festival in Penza and Tarkhany in July 1994. The signature to the questionnaire is kept in the poet’s personal archive in Kharkiv. Although the list of questions is lost, some of them can be easily reconstructed from the context. The responses are not concerned with Lermontov as such, but rather represent a traditional discourse about life, history and culture by a member of the intelligentsia. The poet dwells on the loss of the prophetic vocation by modern writers, and ponders the changing fortunes of Russian culture. Chichibabin’s answers present his opinion about a wide range of problems: from philosophical and religious to cultural, literary, political and social, as well as personal issues. Chichibabin shares his thoughts about the Russian intelligentsia and his contemporaries: Z. Mirkina, A. Sakharov, and A. Solzhenitsyn. The publication is supplied with comments that compare and contrast Chichibabin’s responses in the questionnaire with other transcripts of his.

In his overview of the history of Truman Capote’s publications in Russia, the author follows a period from the first mention of the writer in 1948 until the appearance of his unfinished novel Answered Prayers in Russian in 2019. The article quotes documents from Russian archives, detailing the preparation of Capote’s works for publication, as well as reminiscences of translators: V. Chemberdzhi, M. Galperina, N. Staviskaya, and E. Romanova, who share personal impressions of their work with Capote’s texts, and their opinions about his stylistics. The article examines the quality of the Russian translations, dwelling on the less successful attempts. In addition, the author lists inaccuracies in the latest publications of Capote’s essays and short stories; he proceeds to point out spelling variations of the writer’s name and the titles of his books, which creates a bibliographical mess for publishers and scholars alike. The critic also mentions the discoveries he made in Capote’s New York-based archive in 2014, as well as his experience interacting with Capote’s literary executor Alan Schwartz.

A review of the 12 books published in the Masters of Artistic Translation series [Mastera khudozhestvennogo perevoda] by Rudomino Book Centre. Each book is devoted to one of the universally recognized translation authorities like Vladimir Kharitonov, Nora Gal, Elga Linetskaya, and others. Another important characteristic of the series is that all 12 books feature loving forewords and epilogues, penned by fellow-translators, apprentices, and relatives, which enrich the publications with sincerity and direct personal voice, on the one hand, and the expert quality of descriptions of each translator’s method, on the other. The review is structured around the latter: the translators’ own reminiscences and/or those of people closest to them. The books are not an easy read in the sense that understanding them requires experience, both in life and professionally, as well as a love for literature, a demanding taste, honesty and responsibility in translation, a refined ear for language, and constant doubts and self-editing.

 

The essay focuses on the so called ‘Injin gifts’ – a racialist notion that James Fenimore Cooper attributed to his famous frontier hero Natty Bumppo in The Deerslayer (1841). While implying that certain traits of character, as for example vengefulness, was God’s ‘gift’ to the indigenous people, this notion also paradoxically questions the racial boundaries. The ‘gifts’ are both vertical (bestowed by God) and horizontal (liable to exchange) as Cooper’s novel demonstrates. To support this argument, the essay discusses the plot of racial violence and frontier war in the work of Cooper’s contemporaries – James Hall and Robert Montgomery Bird. Both authors introduce a new cultural hero – a white character who kills indigenous people out of revenge. While revenge is justified as an act of counter-violence, it also threatens to blur the racial boundaries since white characters put on the traits and share the spirit of their antagonists. This is especially evident in Bird’s novel Nick of the Woods (1837): Bird’s racist discourse, paradoxically and unwillingly, turns against itself as his white character Nathan Slaughter engaged in the potlatch-like exchange of violence and deaths, ‘mirrors’ the indigenous Americans he is trying to destroy.

The philosopher M. Bakhtin occupies a unique place in the process of shaping of a new humanistic paradigm. Amid the 1960s crisis in the West, Bakhtin’s key concepts, from ‘carnival’ and ‘polyphony’ to ‘dialogism’, provided a foundation for a common communication code for the humanities, which helped participants of the dialogue to find their mutual points of interest. The 16th International Bakhtin Conference ‘Bakhtin in the Post-Revolutionary Era’, which took place in Shanghai in September 2017, prompted the author to ponder the modern state of international Bakhtin studies and identify certain trends, especially noticeable in the Chinese context of the studies. The multistage reception of his ideas in Russia and abroad reveals a changing treatment of his legacy, much in demand these days, which are typified by a crisis of the humanities. Bakhtin’s stance during and after the revolution, as well as his internal approval of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, changes in social and cultural history, which are particularly relevant today, suggest that his ideas can be used in the context of polyphonic thinking and new, e. g. digital, technologies.

The article discusses the problem of the non-existent biography of Yury Dombrovsky, and sets out to disprove the myth created by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta about KGB’s persecuting and eventually murdering the writer in retaliation for his novel The Faculty of Useless Things [Fakultet nenuzhnykh veshchey]. Facts manipulation, replacement of the truth with personal beliefs and conjectures, and, ultimately, letting a work of imagination invade the reality – those are just a few examples of global mythologizing, or the post-truth reality, one of today’s biggest challenges. To a certain extent, an article is written in response to the last year’s scandal covered by Novaya Gazeta, which published the article A Brawl with Phantoms [Draka s prizrakami], only to follow up with a refutation co-written by the newspaper’s own reporter O. Khlebnikov and Dombrovsky’s widow K. Turumova-Dombrovskaya. The paper is based on the aforementioned controversial article, revised and expanded for the publication.

The review of the book Turgenev and the Russian Liberal Idea... [Turgenev i liberalnaya ideya v Rossii…] focuses on the interpretation of liberalism in Turgenev’s works by Russian scholars of various schools and branches of the humanities. Treatment of liberal ideology always remained at the heart of many scholarly interpretations of Turgenev, yet the researchers were often influenced by political environment. The review emphasizes that the compilers did not care for uniformity of opinion, but were trying instead to present contemporary polemics about Turgenev’s political, philosophical and literary principles. These, the reviewer concludes, make the collection particularly valuable. The book also contains numerous new discoveries about the writer’s life and work.

The author of the book review argues that, contrary to I. Huizinga’s belief, the play mode of 20th c. literature, especially in its earliest and latest periods, is more pronounced. Russian literature, including its non-official variety, is compared with its foreign peers, starting from antiquity (visual poetry). Along with wide-spread play-elements, the author singles out fairly uncommon ones: to illustrate the use of a lipogram, she references G. Perec’s novel La Disparition (1969), whose 300 pages are written without using the letter e, the most common letter in French. She also follows numerous remarkable features of national or ethnic mentalities reflected in speech. The author describes the principles of encoding, common-usage interpretations, text reductions and thickenings, volume restrictions, etc. She pays special attention to the interaction of literature with non-verbal artistic techniques, especially its synthesis with painting (and more broadly, with images) and music. The book gives examples of the Internet penetrating the system of literary genres.

The book assists in profound understanding of the development processes of the novel as a genre, and offers a nuanced overview of the annual events around the Booker Prize awarded for the best novel in Russia and the UK. Introducing the book is an article by Sir Michael Caine (1927—1999), who initiated the Russian Booker Prize and chaired its advisory committee. The publication is an extract from the historical essay ‘The Booker Story’. The first section, ‘Twenty five years in the Booker mirror’, opens with a story about the origins and history of the Russian Booker. In ‘Between the two cultures. A story told by documents and reminiscences of the participants (1992—1996)’, Russian Booker’s committee secretary Igor Shaytanov describes it as the first independent literary prize in the new Russia, free of any ties to the state policy. The second section is devoted to the UK’s Man Booker Prize. In his article ‘The British Booker: a portrait of an era’ Alastair Niven describes the events that culminate in creation of a portrait of the British literature spanning fifty years. The book’s third section is titled ‘The chronicle of the Booker events 1992—2016’.

More than simply a monograph about a literary journal, Lukyanin’s book features reminiscences of its former readers, authors, and editors. Already in its first decade of existence, Ural began to print works of renowned Russian writers and translated American and British prose alongside Urals-born authors. Its commercial success peaked in the 1970s, under V. Ocheretin as its editor-in-chief, with tens of thousands of local industrial workers subscribing to the journal for its crime mysteries and its popular satirical and humorous sections. In the early 1980s, the liberal Communist Lukianin started transformation of the journal’s agenda, while Urals remained the centre of the region’s literary life. The Urals underground writers began to appear in the journal in the late 1980s, although Ural shunned works that were too critical of the Soviet government, unlike its Moscow-based peers, who managed to attract huge numbers of new readers.