The author attempts to find out in which ways Pushkin used the word ‘prostoy’ [‘simple’] and why he valued this quality so much. According to V. Dal’s dictionary, the word can have positive as well as negative connotations. Pushkin, however, constantly uses it to denote the virtue of a literary work unmarred by negative features such as vagueness, confusion, and ostentatiousness. Examples of such usage can be found in his characteristics of Delvig and Baratynsky. Pushkin bestows not only aesthetic, but also ethical meaning on the attribute ‘simple.’ He calls Tatiana Larina, his ideal, ‘simple’: here, the word is synonymous with ‘noble.’ Simplicity as naivety and purity of the heart defines the characters of The Belkin Tales [Povesti Belkina] and The Captain’s Daughter [Kapitanskaya dochka]. Analysis of The Belkin Tales reveals yet another aspect of simplicity: the category serves to determine both polemic and positive aspects, for both the book’s poetics and meanings. The author concludes his research by suggesting that simplicity belongs to Pushkin’s fundamental concepts.

The article deals with the alteration of the wording in the two known holographs of Pushkin’s poem ‘The Upas Tree’ [‘Anchar’]: the 1828 draft refers to the cruel African ruler as the ‘prince,’ whereas the first publication in the almanac Northern Flowers [Severnye tsvety] at the end of 1831 uses the word ‘tsar.’ The same variance in line 33 of ‘The Upas Tree’ persists between the Big and Small academic collections of Pushkin’s poetry: the Big anthology has ‘tsar,’ while the Small one ‘prince.’ In this regard, the paper offers a concise review of the arguments used by Soviet scholars of Pushkin to justify either of the versions of the problematic line and considers those facts of Pushkin’s personal life and work from the period of the poem’s writing which were ignored by scholars in the Soviet era. In addition, certain details of the poem’s publication were set straight following the newly printed commented collection of Poems from ‘Northern Flowers’ (2016) under the general editorship of David M. Bethea, which enables the scholar to form a final opinion about the wording of line 33 of the poem.

The article examines the name/title of the ‘high personage’ Reuss andthe symbolic meaning of two numerals (XVII and 43, both palindromes of number 34 = 17 x 2), included by Bunin in his short story The Gentleman from San Francisco [Gospodin iz San-Frantsisko]. The author points out that the Roman numeral XVII (17) started to be perceived as unlucky under the influence of southern Italian superstitions which, in turn, originate from ancient Roman sepulchral inscriptions. Just like other Russian travellers, e. g. N. Lukhmanova, Bunin, a frequent visitor of southern Italy, may have gleaned those beliefs from the popular book La Smorfia or La Nuova Smorfia, which interprets dreams of people, objects, or situations. Next, the author addresses the Capri tradition of world literature, reminding the readers that the cultural perception of the island of Capri, where the gentleman from San Francisco ends up dying, is traditionally that of a happy rather than tragic place. Bunin becomes the first writer to associate the locus of Capri with themes hitherto completely incongruous with this blessed island, such as sickness, ageing, and death.

The article explores the literary relationship between I. Bunin and V. Nabokov, who, according to the author, could not be more different and yet shared a certain common view of art. The author raises and solves the problem of the informal aesthetic alliance between Bunin and Nabokov actualised in their intertextual dialogue aimed against N. Chernyshevsky’s materialistic understanding of art. Basing his findings on the material of the novels The Life of Arseniev: Youth [Zhizn Arsenieva. Yunost] and The Gift [Dai], the author proves that these books are engaged in a conversation with each other and analyses Nabokov’s literary game with Bunin: upon examination of the short remark made by Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who is delighted to have received Bunin’s compliments for his novel The Gift, the author finds that there are parallels between The Gift and The Life of Arseniev, and in such a context the remark about Bunin’s compliment seems to gain a very specific meaning. In reconstructing Bunin’s inner polemic with Chernyshevsky in The Life of Arseniev, we discover that it finds its way into a new dialogue with Nabokov in The Gift a few years later.

The article deals with the topics and poetics of Bunin’s final book Dark Avenues [Tyomnye allei].The study is polemically charged: the author argues with a number of Bunin scholars who described the meanings and artistic uniqueness of the writer’s later works. Meskin believes that it was Bunin’s intention to narrow down the theme and the meaning of his best book. All that the author decided to refer to as love is merely part of a superficial plane of content of the stories; this plane would lack in aesthetic value were it not for another, inner, plane, which does not immediately catch the eye. Following in the polemical mode, the author is particularly keen to demonstrate how Bunin’s philosophy is manifested in the novellas, including his attitude towards life and death and his ambition to show a full range of relationships between a man and a woman, as well as his idea to write an elaborate answer to the question ‘What really is a woman?’ The author finds that Dark Avenues is not so much an encyclopaedia of love but of female characters: from attractive ‘predators’ to equally alluring ‘prey.’

The article examines the principal models of memory that are typical of the poetry of the ‘first wave’ Russian emigration. Poems by Russian emigres are characterised primarily by the use of the biographical (individual) and collective (communicative and cultural) memory models. The dominant idea of memory as an obligation means that the hoard of memories about the past is a factor that enables emigrants to preserve their Russian identity.This ‘hypertrophied retrospectivism,’ to use Brodsky’s term, exercised its influence on all levels and planes of ‘first wave’ poetry, including its genre structure. This retrospective approach is rejected, especially in poems by younger generation poets, with its opponents refusing to remember traumatic experiences of the past, suffered either personally or on a national scale. The author, therefore, reveals and analyses two key variations of cultural memory which she believes to determine the internal structure and genre composition of the poetry by ‘first wave’ Russian emigres.

A. Zhuchkova’s review deals with M. Stepnova’s new novel The Garden [Sad], a recognised bestseller in 2020. The critic examines the novel from the viewpoint of its adherence to the classical genre of ideological novel and finds that the entire book is at the same time a response to Dostoevsky’s The Possessed [Besy] and a mockery of the liberal idea, the latter used as a prism through which to view the whole of Russia. Parody takes up an enormous part of Stepnova’s book; in fact, the entire novel is a spoof.Its principal fabric is made of implied parallels to The Possessed: Tusya is Nikolay Stavrogin, Boryatinskaya is Varvara Petrovna, Meisel is Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Nyutochka is Dasha Shatova, and Aleksandr Ulianov is Kirillov... In Dostoevsky’s and Stepnova’s novels, the portrayal of liberals is identical when it comes to their mannerisms, ideals and bon mots, so is the time setting in The Possessed and The Garden. However, while Dostoevsky only shares his premonitions about the imminent socialism, denunciations, killings and terror, Stepnova (whose novel conspicuously features the Ulianovs among its characters) has the knowledge of what is to come.

N. Pereyaslov reminisces about contemporary authors who passed away in the early 21st c.: Sergey Esin, Valentin Rasputin, and Vyacheslav Dyogtev. The article is effectively a collection of delayed obituaries considering the works of the three writers in retrospect and recognising their respective contributions to modern Russian prose. Each of the three was personally known to Pereyaslov, so he shares his memories of them as writers and friends simultaneously, as well as his impressions of their books, like S. Esin’s sensational Diaries [Dnevniki], V. Rasputin’s late short stories, and V. Dyogtev’s prose that depicts numerous unpalatable and deplorable aspects of contemporary Russian history. Especially interesting is the recollection of the first reading of such provocative and controversial works as Dyogtev’s short stories and Rasputin’s Ivan’s Daughter, Ivan’s Mother [Doch Ivana, mat Ivana]: this memory reacquaints us with the living and breathing, and uninterrupted literary process where the writers portrayed in Pereyaslov’s article play an important role.

The concept of ‘Holy Rus’ [‘Svyataya Rus’] starts to play a pivotal role in the processes of national self-identification that occupy Russian intellectuals in the first half of the 19th c. It gains a special kind of multidimensionality in the literature of the day, with the motif of personal responsibility for proximity to God and adherence to the ideal of holiness coming to the foreground. The core of the English concept of ‘Holy Russia,’ in use by the British since the 1870s, finds itself in stark opposition to contemporary meaning of the ‘Holy Rus’ concept. Its original meaning was largely defined by the specifics of Anglo-Russian political relations. At the same time, its core is consistent with peripheral meanings of the contemporary Russian concept: the image of an aggressive militaristic empire it creates and promotes shows clear parallels with public speeches of A.          Herzen and M. Bakunin. By the end of the 19th c., the concept of ‘Holy Russia’ develops a new semantic layer that incorporates elements corresponding to both liberal and conservative meanings of the original concept in its contemporary form.

The article considers the background of the little-known letter written by D. Merezhkovsky to Novoe Vremya in 1901 with regard to the novel Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci [Voskresshie bogi. Leonardo da Vinchi] and establishes the circumstances that prompted such a reaction to V. Burenin’s feuilleton. The novel was written during the period of bitter competition with A. Volynsky, who had authored a study of Leonardo da Vinci’s life. Merezhkovsky’s suspicion that the latter may have plagiarised his original plot resulted in an acrimonious rivalry. In his letter, Merezhkovsky chooses to focus on the author’s ‘scholarly scrupulosity’ and the authoritative opinion of European audiences, who had long acknowledged his writing talent, rather than on prejudiced reviews of his novels penned by newspaper-employed critics. The article argues that what really provoked Merezhkovsky to approach the newspaper was his resentment of unfair allegations, rather than an attempt to defend the authenticity of Leonardo’s drawing. Hostile reviews of his novel in the periodicals contradicted Merezhkovsky’s efforts to create his own reputation as a writer.

In Despair[Otchayanie] Nabokov/Sirin tries his hand at portraying an antihero and anti-artist. This predetermines the special principle behind the character’s creation: the Ich-Erzahlung (first-person) narration and the algorithm of Hermann’s consistent and total negation and expulsion from reality. The article analyses the main types of the author’s position in the novel: a subjectified narration, the ‘two-voice word,’ etc. The author particularly draws our attention to Hermann’s mystical fear of mirrors. For many years the character was haunted by one and the same nightmare: he enters a room, which is completely bare, desolate and painted clean white. The dream appears to be a metaphor of the hollowness of his personality. It is this hollowness that the hero fears he might see reflected in a mirror. The scholar traces allusions to H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man (1897). The despair of the protagonist has a truly existential magnitude, his escape barred both into the ‘otherworldliness’ and the meta-reality. The latter has such a vague presence in the material world and is so devoid of distinctive parameters that it hardly justifies the description of being real.

The article reconstructs two episodes from the life of M. Bakhtin in the 1960s — early 1970s. Producing the scholar’s academic biography remains a relevant goal of contemporary Bakhtin studies. In order to achieve that, one has to rely on strictly documented evidence so one can perceive the actual attitude of the scholar’s contemporaries to his personality and ideas. Involving such dissimilar personages as K. Fedin and V. Shklovsky significantly enriches the portrayal. Introducing hitherto unknown documents uncovered in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the authors bring to light the previously undiscovered details about K. Fedin’s and Vyach. Ivanov’s assistance in Bakhtin’s being granted a Moscow residential permit in the early 1970s. From the memoirs and diaries of V. Kozhinov and A. Chudakov, the authors glean details about the growing friendship between Bakhtin and Shklovsky after their first meeting in the boarding house for writers in Peredelkino in March of 1972.

The article examines the two-volume edition of correspondence between Vasily Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Turgenev prepared by the German scholar in Slavic studies Holger Siegel and published by Bohlau in 2012 and 2019, respectively. Siegel’s opus is analysed in terms of adherence to requirements for the type of edition containing a large corpus of epistles: i. e., the collection should be as complete as possible and use accurate dating, which ensures a correct order of letters inside the corpus; it should render the correspondents’ texts precisely, and include factual and biographical commentary. Citing the book’s numerous blunders in each of the aforementioned areas, the authors demonstrate its inadequacy as a scholarly publication.

The article is dedicated to the personality and works of the poet and scriptwriter Pyotr Bagrationi-Gruzinsky (1920-1984). No monograph has been written about him, nor are his poems included in school curricula. He is famous as a lyricist collaborating with the film studio Gruziya-Film and author of the lyrics for the song Tbiliso, which became the Georgian capital’s anthem. The first collection of his poems and reminiscences about the poet was published in Tbilisi in 2004, twenty years upon his death. The second and more comprehensive collection followed in 2016. The article pays special attention to the poet’s dramatic circumstances in Bolshevik-run Georgia. He was the only direct descendant of the last Georgian tsar of the Kartli-Kakheti dynasty, and this legacy proved fatal. In 1945, he and a group of young Tbilisi-based poets became targets of criminal proceedings when political charges were brought against them. Documents from the case file are published in Russia for the first time. The article includes an interview with the poet’s son Nugzar Bagrationi- Gruzinsky, the head of Georgia’s royal house and a theatre director.

Evgeny Ermolin, a renowned critic, essay writer, cultural historian and blogger, sets out to retrace his verbal footprint in this world. In his book, he follows the changes in literary and literary-journalistic spaces over time. The main bulk of the material comes from articles printed in the journals Druzhba Narodov, Znamya, Kontinent, Neva, Noviy Mir, and Oktyabr, as well as hitherto unpublished pieces. Selecting his earlier written works for the book, Ermolin brings them up to date in order to create a panoramic overview from today's perspective. The book describes literary and journalistic transformations and paradoxes: the author would defend the living word as a means to record the truth, first against ideological exploitation, and then relativism. He notes the change in the word's status: a shift from signifying and expressing a revealed truth to a search tool and a means of its situational recording, often in an interaction.

The book under review is a polemical and somewhat provocative study of the literary process in Russia and among Russian-speaking emigre writers. Despite its genre (a textbook), the book bears a greater resemblance to a monograph which sets out to construct a theoretical history of 20th-c. Russian literature across the major parameters of literary history. This overarching agenda defines the book's unusual structure: it foregoes the traditional division into periods or listings of ‘big names.' At the same time, the classics and stages of the literary process constitute sections in their own right. The author also considers the history of literary criticism and studies in theory and history of literature, as well as the relationship between verse and prose and writing genres vs. main categories of literature. S. Kormilov's approach can be described as non-ideological, i. e., the author tries to steer clear of any social-political engagement.

A review of the monograph dedicated to the efforts of the West German publisher Suhrkamp to popularise works of M. Kundera, B. Grabal (Czechoslovakia), W. Szymborska, C. Milosz (Poland), J. Becker (DDR) and many other Eastern European authors in German-speaking markets before the subsequent ‘velvet revolutions' in the Socialist bloc. Co-authored by Dirk Kemper, professor of the University of Freiburg and Moscow's Russian State University for the Humanities, and Pawel Zajac, his colleague from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, the monograph is an international project. The publisher placed special emphasis on Polish literature. However, the book fails to expand on the fact that for many years Suhrkamp ignored Soviet authors, thus significantly narrowing the scope of its cultural transfer. Nonetheless, the authors of the monograph conclude that such a transfer into Eastern Europe was successful.

The name of Vladimir Muller (1880-1941) was familiar to every student of the English language in Russia as his Anglo-Russian dictionary had been in print since 1947. Muller's book Playwriting and Theatre in the Age of Shakespeare [Drama i teatr epokhiShekspira] (1925) retained its reputation of the best Russian guide to Shakespeare's theatre and dramatic technique for over half a century. But next to nothing was known about its author till information was dug out from the archive by D. Ermolovich together with the manuscript of another book by Muller — Pushkin and Shakespeare [Pushkin i Shekspir]. Prepared for Pushkin's death centenary in 1937, the text was never published. Even now the monograph stands out as the most comprehensive factual collection of evidence on the sources of Pushkin's competence both in the English language and Shakespeare with some penetrating analyses of Shakespeare's presence in Pushkin's work.