Tvardovsky’s evolution as writer and editor reflected the paradoxes of his epoch, and was crystalised in his relationship to ‘two fathers,’ his biological father and Stalin. In his youth in the 1930s he renounced the former because he idealised the latter’s ideology and programme. The renunciation caused him personal trauma, which was intensified by the experience of the arrest and condemnation of several of his close literary colleagues in the late 1930s. Those experiences raised in him questions he could not answer at the time. After 1953, however, as Stalin’s past crimes were gradually publicly revealed, Tvardovsky reassessed his admiration of him. He remained faithful to socialism as an ideal, but now aimed to clear the way for its future optimum development by using memory to rediscover and understand the Soviet Union’s true history. This process required him also to reassess the memory of his father, and to take full responsibility for having renounced him. He completed this evolution only with the composition of his last major work, By the Right of Memory [Po pravu pamyati].

Vasily Belov (1932–2012), from his early works appreciated as one of the most gifted among the ‘village prose’ writers, expects to be read today in a changing literary and cultural context. In the Soviet period he was officially criticised for his partiality to the ‘small homeland’ presumably opposed by him to historical progress and innovation, and, on the other hand, blamed for conservatism and xenophobia in his perpetual chase for those whom he found guilty for the decline of the harmony in a countryside Russia. The issues Belov would take in his time and context are not forgotten today but in their present-day actuality look even more urgent and dramatic. ‘The country and the city’ — a recurring problem of historical evolution (R. Williams) stands up in its new significance with a view to what is seen now as a global world fraught with either a new threat or a promising perspective to national cultures.

The article discusses V. Belov’s novel The Best Is Still to Come [Vsyo vperedi]. Published in 1986, the novel became a target of numerous scathing reviews, remaining one of the writer’s most controversial books to this day. The article examines the polemic between D. Urnov and A. Malgin published in Voprosy Literatury in 1987. The author goes on to propose the novel’s modern interpretation based on such concepts as I. Shaytanov’s ‘one-time form’ and Z. Bauman’s ‘retrotopia.’ He finds that The Best Is Still to Come is unique from the viewpoint of its genre, and so are Belov’s other works Harmony. Essays on folk aesthetics [Lad. Ocherki narodnoy estetiki] and The Daily Life of Russian North [Povsednevnaya zhizn russkogo Severa]. Analysed are the novel’s chronotope, shifts and disruptions of artistic time, and confusion in the artistic space. The key image of this urban novel by Belov, discord (raz-lad ) is contrasted with the image of harmony, con-cord (lad ) that permeates his writings about the traditional rural lifestyle.

The article offers to look at contemporary poetry from the viewpoint of an ‘ordinary reader,’ uninvolved in the literary process and unaffiliated with the notional ‘establishment.’ The author uses his position as a bystander, on the one hand, and a training that enables expert assessment (the author teaches Russian language and literature and holds a master’s degree in cognitive research), on the other, to examine the processes behind presentday literary awards and criticism of poetry. According to Smirnov, modern poetry and modern criticism both have disintegrated into separate segments within a common literary field. The continuous erosion of language norms and dilution of criteria have pushed contemporary art, and poetry in particular, away from the rules of the classical ontology. Thus, a text cannot be identified as pertaining to ‘poetry’ by such key characteristics as rhyme, rhythm, or use of figurative language. In this situation, the author pins his hopes on the institution of criticism: unless it engages in self-reflection in order to recognise the circumstances and phenomena behind its failures, constructive changes remain unlikely.

1. Dergachev believes that modern poetry, along with any other art form these days, is going through an identity crisis, which has made it virtually impossible to distinguish true art from a parody of it. It is increasingly more common for journals and literary award short-lists to feature perfectly confusing oeuvre, to whose defense, however, fellow poets and nominating panels jump without hesitation. The author contemplates what criteria could help ordinary readers to orient themselves, and where in-group favouritism comes in. He claims that nowadays preferences of the few tend to shape the so-called ‘elite’ trend, which in turn forces its choice on hundreds of people, and the artificially complicated narrative and the shrinking poetic framework, along with a social or feminist agenda, propel the fact of the author’s position to dominance over the fact of artistic creation. The article offers an opinion about the problems of contemporary Russian poetry and attempts to look at them from an insider’s perspective as well as through the eyes of an outsider, by a blogger who has stayed out of the inner workings of journals.

1. Kekova’s new interview recorded by E. Konstantinova shows a combined portrait of Kekova as a poet adhering to the ‘neoclassical’ tradition of 20th-c. metaphysical poetry as well as a scholar specialising in works by A. Tarkovsky and N. Zabolotsky and their intertextual relations. The interview raises the issues of contemporary philological research, the tradition of Christian poetics, of ‘sermon’ in literature, and the legacies of the Silver and Golden Ages. According to Kekova, Tarkovsky’s and Zabolotsky’s poetic oeuvres have more in common with the Golden rather than Silver Age, hence their rejection of the delusions of Symbolism and the yearning for philosophical comprehension of their place in the world; she admits to sharing this pursuit as a poet. Kekova’s on point comments to poems by her beloved authors ensure better understanding of her own poetics, and Konstantinova’s questions reveal their semantic and stylistic interconnectedness.

This article focuses on the characteristics of Sasha Sokolov’s writing and the role that music plays in his verbal composition. Drawing on evidence from the writer’s biography, comments and interviews, it is possible to identify a specific connection between Sokolov’s proezia and his understanding of music composition — a connection that has yet failed to be grasped and examined by critics. Sokolov’s most recent literary work Triptych (2011) provides the reader with a set of clues helping to reveal the connection of Sokolov’s oeuvre with the world of music. Building on that, the author of the article intends to further explore the ways through which music partakes in the verbal composition of Triptych. The results point to the possibility of reconsidering the whole of Sasha Sokolov’s oeuvre from a novel point of view, one that would highlight the meaning of music in his literary works.

Pushkin’s epigram ‘Motion’ [‘Dvizhenie’] (1825) has fascinated scholars for years. However, all its interpretations relied on its external context — either philosophical or political. The article sets out to interpret ‘Motion’ in the light of the literary and polemic agenda that was on Pushkin’s mind at the time of the poem’s writing. Printed in the fourth issue of Küchelbecker’s Mnemozina for the year 1825, practically right before Pushkin’s ‘To the Sea’ [‘K moryu’], were Küchelbecker’s hexameters entitled ‘A hymn to Bacchus (from Homer)’ [‘Gimn Bakhusu (Iz Gomera)’], with a note of ‘Tsarskoe Selo, 1817.’ This may have seemed to Pushkin a reference to the dispute around hexameter (in the years 1813–1814 and 1817–1820); the episode with an argument between two philosophers was included in the response that S. Uvarov, a proponent of hexameter, wrote to V. Kapnist, who promoted the versification of Russian folk songs as an alternative to hexameter. This allows for the assumption that Pushkin’s epigram was addressed to Küchelbecker, with whom, since their time at the Lyceum, Pushkin had engaged in a dispute about the suitability of hexameter for Russian poetry.

The article gives an overview of the literary legacy of Arto Tapio Paasilinna — one of the few Finnish authors of the second half of the 20th c. to enjoy international renown. Paasilinna’s 35 novels have been translated into 40 different languages; many of the books have been adapted to films. Russian audiences have yet to discover all of Paasilinna’s works. His books offer perfect material to study Finnish culture, humour, and enigmatic female characters. The present essay dwells on the critic’s impression of several unique stylistic features of Paasilinna’s prose. Finnish humour, attention to detail, and unexpected metaphors, along with other devices used by Paasilinna, allow for a study of Finnish culture that is shown not only through examples of typical behaviour of its remarkable representatives, but also as a mystery behind a façade of what seems like indifference and emotional inadequacy. Finland can boast hundreds of literary professionals, yet Paasilinna holds a special place in the vibrant stylistic diversity of the contemporary Finnish literary process.

The poetry of Narodnik revolutionaries is viewed in the context of interaction between literature and journalism during transition periods. A. Kholikov and V. Khruslova analyse the Poet’s Library book series, whose staff prepared poems of Narodnik revolutionaries for publication, including the anthology The Poetry of the Revolutionary Narodniks [Poeziya revolyutsionnogo narodnichestva] (2019). The article discusses the relevance of the poetry penned by Narodnik revolutionaries as perceived for the Soviet period and the current circumstances, the aesthetic value of their poetic legacy, and the multifaceted relationship of the poems with the Silver Age movement. A review of various methods used by editorial teams calls attention to the problem of cataloging magazine and newspaper material and outlines the prospects of a wider source base for contemporary research.

At the core of this article and publication are archived documents, namely, letters of A. Smirnov to T. Shchepkina-Kupernik, their collection kept at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). Collaboration between the Shakespeare scholar and the translator lasted for over 30 years (1916–1947). This epistolary legacy is rich in different philological subjects, including Smirnov’s and Shchepkina-Kupernik’s joint preparation of Shakespeare’s works to be printed for adult as well as younger audiences (for example, the collected works for children in four volumes, which features the first publication of Shchepkina-Kupernik’s translation of Romeo and Juliet, produced on Smirnov’s request). It is Shchepkina-Kupernik’s work on the tragedy that the author attempts to piece together in the article. The correspondence also prompts a broader question about the translatororiented editions of Shakespeare prepared for print by Smirnov in the late 1930s. The commentary supplied to the correspondence offers a reconstruction of A. Smirnov’s wide network of contacts in the cultural and publishing setting in the grim period of 1930s political repression.

The article is devoted to close reading of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. The author supplies his literary-critical and existential comments to various episodes in the novel. He discusses the novel’s relation to myth and parody as well as the possibility of such an interpretation of ‘quixotism’ and statements that would resonate with the present-day realia. Reading the book again, the critic recognises it as the epitome of parody. Thomas Mann referred to parody as a myth (imitation, following in somebody’s footsteps). Here, parody gave rise to a new myth. The scene of the book burning would probably read more interesting if one had the knowledge of those books and could perceive the poignancy of this highly relevant intimation, this literary jibe — to the fullest extent, as we do while reading certain jibes in the modern press. But for this to happen, Cervantes will need his own Bakhtin. The critic suggests that Cervantes’ idea of the book underwent changes in the process of the novel’s writing, and so did the writer’s self-awareness: the author in the second part is noticeably different from the author in the first.

Smirnov’s essay is devoted to an episode from Gogol’s Dead Souls [Myortvye dushi]; rather a landscape than an episode. In Gogol’s opinion, a landscape is not a copy of nature but an artist’s creation. A landscape is meant to be created, not copied from nature: the role of a master craftsman is not to usher the viewer along the trimmed bosquets of a French formal garden, unsurprising and immediately recognisable, but to lure them into the thicket of his imagination. It is with such a fruit of imagination that we are faced in the case of the neglected, unruly and overgrown garden on the landowner Plyushkin’s estate. The author examines Gogol’s description of the garden in detail, almost word by word, uncovering the hidden symbolic meaning of contrasting the village, ugly in its state of neglect, with the landowner’s garden, equally neglected but beautiful nonetheless. What is piles of rubbish in the village streets becomes pretty fallen leaves on the garden paths; the author suggests that Gogol used this contrast to let nature ‘correct’ the gardener, i. e. to remove the incompetent human alterations and reveal itself in its full glory.

A review of the anthology prepared by N. Lopatina, a renowned Russian bibliographer. The collection includes 187 translations of Goethe’s 78 poems, which are quoted in the original language, and of several poetic fragments from the tragedy Faust, the novel Wilhelm Meister, as well as the cycle West-Eastern Divan, made by 63 Russian 19th-c. poets, representatives of various traditions — from Classicism and Sentimentalism to Symbolism and Acmeism. The collection showcases the high achievements of the country’s school of poetic translation and acute cultural awareness of the Russian society in the 19th c., and focuses on the part of Goethe’s poetic oeuvre that was especially popular with the Russian reader. Another role of the anthology is to bridge a gap in our knowledge and uncover names, often unfairly forgotten, of Russian poets and philologists of the past in their interaction with the Western European literature.

1. Smirnova’s monograph examines the multiple levels of the narrative system in A. Pushkin’s The Belkin Tales [Povesti Belkina]. The author focuses on various nuances of Belkin’s manner as a narrator, and, in particular, on the controversial character of the numerous interpretations of his stories. The book’s main message is that The Belkin Tales’ significance is neither in the book’s parodic nature, nor its multi-layered structure, purportedly serving to reveal the levels of parodic mistrust in the narrator. Pushkin’s ‘events in their own right’ are assumed as a criterion of the truth and sincerity of the narration, where, instead of producing a parodic gap in meaning, the accumulation of events signifies an enormity beyond the narrator’s reach. The numerous unidentifiable perspectives in The Tales are results of two intertwining time periods in the narration: the past (as an era) and the present (the modern period).

The review of the dictionary 100 US Writers [100 pisateley SShA] analyses the entries that cover biographical information, summarise the writer’s output and contain lists of their principal works and their translations into Russian and Belorussian, as well as the most significant research on the writer’s works. The reviewers find that the dictionary is very well executed. However, they are somewhat baffled by the selection principles. In Y. Stulov’s opinion, one should take into account new participants of the literary process and the level of the readers’ familiarity with authors whose books remained inaccessible for ideological reasons. While supporting his position in general, the reviewers point out several notable omissions, for example, P. Buck, B. Dylan, J. Irving, P. Theroux, L. Erdrich, etc. The book’s indisputable merit lies in its ‘open’ structure that allows for new individual entries to be included in subsequent editions.

The review is concerned with the language of the humanities, in particular, the one on the border between rationalism and mythologising. With the help of V. Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarisation (ostranenie), the author explores the logic whereby some schools of thought and their related sets of values convert into others. The study paints a kaleidoscopic picture of conversion undergone by elements of humanity’s intellectual history. The main distinguishing feature of such a view of history is a moving picture, whose parts can become elements of completely different holistic entities, whilst remaining perfectly self-identifiable. The book focuses on the key metaphors that determined the way of thinking in a particular period. A metaphor, too, is used to organise the author’s reasoning and argumentation. The review shows how A. Kovelman’s book brings the language of theory back into the fold of literal meanings and their historical transformation.

1. Shulpyakov’s book of essays invites the reader to give another thought to the age-old conflict: Where does the West end and the East begin? Is Russia an Asian country, even halfway? Russia serves as the point of attraction and the author’s self-reflection. Ensuring the book’s thematic diversity, the author covers the perennial topics of history, culture, and literature, all considered in a global context; whereas the semantic depth is achieved by more private motifs. A pivotal switching of the focus occurs at the end of the book, when Russia is presented as part of the Western world, geographically (and culturally), with regard to Turkey. Emphasised is the notional character of the world’s division into two parts. Contrasting one with the other merely helps the author to start a conversation, while The West toward the East [Zapad na Vostok] looks like a philological experiment: the author is trying to come to terms with his cultural inheritance, resolve the conflict between the tradition and fluidity, and discover a fitting place for himself and his country in a global context.