Following the Russian publication of a comprehensive commented collection of Auerbach’s works entitled Historical Topology [Istoricheskaya topologiya] (2022), the article discusses the problems of the German philologist’s legacy both in retrospect and with a look into the future. The choice of the angle comes from the fact that Soviet scholars were cut off from the wealth of the scholarly-humanitarian, historical-cultural, and philosophical traditions and factors that (especially those typical of Germany) largely defined Auerbach’s historical-philological thinking and, by the same token, that a certain inaccessibility of his books and articles has long frustrated contemporary Russian philologists and other scholars in the humanities. Given the renewed interest in Auerbach’s theory and method in the West in the last decades (upon the end of the modern era in the last century), the author concludes that his practical reconsideration of the traditional meaning of historicism and historicity and especially his understanding of what falls under the modern term of interdisciplinarity indicates considerable research and learning potential for humanities scholars.

Relying on A. Veselovsky’s definition of drama as being centred on a character rather than action, the author reexamines the Aristotelian definition of comedy and uncovers the innovative nature of Pushkin’s comedy. The study aims to demonstrate the close semblance between Pushkin’s and Veselovsky’s understanding of drama, using the comedy Boris Godunov as an example. Founded in Veselovsky’s works in its theoretical and analytical premises, the article also references contemporary scholarly apparatus, including the latest findings of general systems theory. In her analysis, the author offers a new classification of the dramatic genre and identifies the characteristics of the Pushkinian comedy that make it ‘problematic,’ in the sense of I. Shaytanov’s interpretation of the term. The article also addresses Pushkin’s use of ambiguity about Godunov’s involvement in the assassination of the young prince Dimitry. The author draws a parallel with wave-particle duality, where the decision of whether a particle or a wave is observed depends on the experimenter’s intentions. The poet’s use of ambiguity as a narrative device implies a hidden subplot of a coup d’état.

   The article is concerned with the story of K. Batyushkov’s analysis of the prose penned by the 18th-c. writer M. Muravyov. This study of Batyushkov’s critical review of Muravyov’s legacy, written and published in the journal Syn Otechestva in 1814, discusses not only Batyushkov’s literary preferences and writing technique, but also his social-political and moral-philosophical reasons to reacquaint the public with the ideas of his literary predecessor. The article details the social-political tendencies of the early 19^th c., the effect that the outcome of the Napoleonic wars had on Batyushkov’s generation, and the general sentiment among his contemporaries (Batyushkov himself fought against Napoleon). According to Shulpyakov, the moral questions posed by Batyushkov (man’s attitude to nature, European culture, the Enlightenment and its ideology, etc.) had been anticipated and promoted by his friend and mentor M. Muravyov. However, Batyushkov’s interpretation is influenced by the new era with its disillusionment, discoveries, and semantic atmosphere.

   The article problematizes the concept of the ‘semantic halo’ of Russian poems written in the meter of Mikhail Lermontov’s ‘I walk out alone upon my way…’ [‘Vykhozhu odin ya na dorogu…’], trochaic pentameter with alternating masculine and feminine rhymes. Analyzing two dozen representative poems, written mostly in the 20^th c. but going back to the 18^th, the author formulates their common archiplot that partly differs from the one established for the ‘Lermontovian cycle’ by Kirill Taranovsky in his pioneering work and critically reformulated by Mikhail Gasparov. The suggested revision (prompted by the author’s detailed analysis of a 1964 poem by Evgeny Evtushenko) concerns the epic component of the archiplot, much more pronounced in the considered corpus of about 300 poems. The invariant theme of this predominantly epic archiplot is ‘Persona’s Encounter with Greatness.’ The article discusses the four principal variants of the archiplot determined by the choice of the persona’s remarkable partner: a living person, a historical / literary figure, an animal, a location (country, city, river, building).

   The article is devoted to J. Brodsky’s poem ‘New stanzas to Augusta’ [‘Novye stansy k Avguste’] (1964), which later gave its name to the collection printed in 1981. In her thorough analysis of the poem’s text and poetics, the author points out its pretexts (G. G. Byron, D. Alighieri) and intertexts, reconstructs the facts of the poet’s biography at the core of ‘New stanzas,’ and compares various interpretations of the work (L. Kolobaeva’s, L. Losev’s, and V. Polukhina’s, among others). The title’s reference to Byron may suggest that, like the English original, the form of the ‘new stanzas’ will be that of the lyrical hero addressing his beloved (Augusta). However, Brodsky’s lyrical narrative reveals a different purpose — rather than an excited lyrical monologue dedicated to a new Augusta, it is an imitation of a written confession, an attempt to use a seemingly epistolary form to talk about all that had befallen him lately (the betrayal by his beloved and a friend, the arrest, the trial, and the exile). The scholar believes that Brodsky’s poem contains an implied plot of a contemplated suicide and the overcoming of this intention by talking to ‘Augusta’ — his star and love.

   The article compares two printed versions of the short story ‘The Power of the Devil’ [‘Vlast lukavogo’], written by the priest P. Bulgakov. The first publication of the story took place in China in 1907; the second edition was given the title ‘Greed’ [‘Zhadnost’] and printed in Europe in 1923. The later edition was thoroughly revised: technical inaccuracies were corrected, several scenes cut short, expressive means added, and more profound conclusions drawn. These changes may indicate that the revision was in part supervised by the priest’s nephew Mikhail Bulgakov, later a renowned writer. Pyotr Bulgakov taught theology at the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok, then the Japanese and Russian languages in Japan, where he served as priest for the Russian embassy; he also studied the influence of Christian philosophy on East and Southeast Asia, published papers on Japanese studies, and produced translations. The article touches on his relationship with M. Bulgakov’s family.

   Since K. Chekalov’s book is a collection of essays dedicated to French popular belles-lettres of the 19^th — early 20^th cc., it allows for the reading to start from any chapter, yet it pays to read all essays in order to discover this phenomenon of French literature in its entirety. The book discusses both internationally renowned authors (A. Dumas, J. Verne, and E. Sue) and those less known to mass readerships (M. Leblanc, P. Féval, P. du Terrail, and X. de Montépin). The essays are concerned with various creative aspects of the author’s writing, as well as the problem of studying individual genres of popular literature. The monograph supports the thesis about French popular prose that emphasises its predilection for genre experimentation. Also in focus of the book is the reception of the French popular novel in Russia. The author supplies interesting examples of the difficulties encountered by translators of stylistic clichés that characterise popular literature. Written in a lively and engaging language, this book will appeal to scholars and ordinary readers alike.

   V. Kantor’s new book is devoted to Dostoevsky’s oeuvre and Russia’s fate, as well as the ailments of Russian society, which the author describes using Dostoevsky’s terminology. At the core of the book is the concept of ‘karamazovshchina,’ interpreted by Kantor as a blind force that is devoid of God, defies all taboos and turns life into a carnival, erasing any distinction between good and evil. According to the author, ‘karamazovshchina’ constitutes the worst affliction of Russian history and life. In his book, Kantor disproves established interpretations of Dostoevsky’s ideas, emphasises the writer’s ambiguous attitude to the masses, demonstrates the Slavophile (rather than imperial) roots of his social ideal, muses on the problem of the loss of faith and freedom, and points out the instances where Dostoevsky’s judgement was prophetic and where, by contrast, he erred. The author considers Dostoevsky in the broader context of Western culture.

1. Basinsky’s A True Story of Anna Karenina [Podlinnaya istoriya Anny Kareninoy] offers an experience of close-reading Tolstoy’s classical novel. The book reconstructs the process of the novel’s writing (1873–1877) and provides an extensive historical and cultural commentary to selected chapters that deal exclusively with the relationships between Anna, Vronsky and Karenin. The monograph also features a philological analysis of the principal artistic images, themes, and motifs and suggests possible prototypes of the novel’s main and secondary characters. In his study, Basinsky relies on factual evidence from the biographies of Tolstoy and his family and friends, as well as their diaries and letters, etc. He supplements his True Story with illustrations, extracts from the memoir of S. Tolstoy, a son of the writer, that concern the novel, and readers’ responses to Anna Karenina (including those from writers, directors, and actors) over the period from its publication to the present day.

   The review deals with the Russian publication of the 1980s’ bestselling study of art history, whose author polemises with Michel Foucault by invoking Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, and Jan Komenský. The core premise of Alpers’ book is a thesis about the decidedly describing rather than narrating character of the Northern Renaissance as opposed to the Italian model. In its reliance on the ‘optical’ method in order to create images (using a lens, a microscope, or a camera obscura), as opposed to the use of perspective by Italian artists, Dutch painters are not merely engaged in copying nature but instead depict the state of mind, ‘the storage of visual images.’ They also abolish the priority of the verbal over the visual described as  ut pictura poesis. Among other topics, the author pays tribute to Rembrandt. She argues that his uniqueness comes from the fact that he dismisses both the lofty Catholic miracle of the incarnated Word and the humble Dutch faith in the world’s outer shell, and thus rejects not only the Dutch art of describing but also the Italian idea of narrative painting.

A book in memory of Anatoly Kuznetsov, an enthusiastic scholar of the life, beliefs and works of the 20th-c. pianist and Christian philosopher Maria Yudina. Referring to her personality as ‘symphonic’ and ‘faithful to sobornost,’ Kuznetsov spent forty years celebrating Yudina’s memory and sparing no effort to collect and preserve her legacy. He searched for and gathered her articles, letters, reminiscences, and diaries, and brought to light her informal connections, discovering her friends of some years and correspondents from all over the world. Yudina exchanged letters with Adorno, Balanchine, Bakhtin, Zabolotsky, Karsavin, Lozinsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Suvchinsky, Florensky, Favorsky, Chukovsky, Shostakovich, and Yavorsky. The rich ‘musical score of life’ is accentuated by the symphonic and polyphonic qualities of her letters. Searching for synthesis, Yudina became its true epitome. Supplementing Yudina’s own writings with scholarly essays and reminiscences about her, Kuznetsov succeeds in capturing the vanishing era.

   The review discusses the first monograph about Ingmar Bergman in the Russian language. The author I. Rubanova refrains from a classical biography to offer an intellectual journey through the master filmmaker’s creations. In the scope of the book are works of a young Bergman as well as creations of an aging artist. Rubanova seems fascinated with Bergman’s lasting image in culture rather than the precise story of his directorial career. Dismissing the cliché about the artist as a loner, the author opens the way for new appreciation of I. Bergman. In the centre of Rubanova’s biographical sketches is Bergman’s little-known career as a playwright. Describing Bergman’s contemporary literary milieu, the author mentions his main influences. Rubanova points out that Bergman’s playwrighting follows the traditions of the national and world theatres, and describes it in terms of two main parallels: Strindberg – Bergman and Shakespeare – Bergman. Gleaning the smallest details relevant to Bergman’s image, Rubanova creates a story about the genius’s artistic evolution.