Edward Said achieved international renown with his book Orientalism, destined to become a bible of postcolonial studies, and as an advocate of Palestinian rights. The scholar was dubbed a nationalist and supporter of Islam. His essays, however, reveal a cosmopolitan Said who abhors the ‘politics of identity,’ Islamism, and religious parties. He expressed his admiration for Jewish philologists and philosophers, felt compassion for the suffering of the Jewish people and championed a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian problem. He borrowed Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur. In Said’s interpretation, it transcends the boundaries of national literatures without obliterating their individual character. Assassination of either of the culture’s ‘two souls,’ the national and the cosmopolitan, may lead to cultural devitalisation and stagnation. Humanism constituted a dominant concept in Said’s works. Although ridiculed by postmodernist literary criticism, humanism is hailed by Said as essential for understanding literature. The dilemma at the core of the scholar’s work remains just as relevant to this day: how to combine cosmopolitism with the love for one’s own nation and how to fight for the rights of your own people without spewing hatred at others.

The image of a motion picture emerges in Nabokov’s early works collected under the title The Return of Chorb [Vozvrashchenie Chorba], years before his major ‘cinematographic’ novels. The article considers cinematography as a theme of three novellas in the collection and explores its functions. It argues that, as well as integrating the image of a film in his characteristic system of reflections and refractions, Nabokov employs it to create metatextual self-reflection: in Nabokov’s view, literature has cinematographic potential for conjuring up optical illusions and plunging the reader into a hallucination or a dream, and in doing so denies its own realistic or mimetic qualities. Just like a motion picture, Nabokov’s novellas are first and foremost interplays of colour and light and their movement — features that distinguish a cinematographic image from a photographic one. Nabokov also speaks of audial imagination as another common element between films (silent at that time) and literature: according to the novelist, a verbal image, silent and visual by nature, allows for the inaudible to be heard and challenges the veracity of the visible.

The article sets out to reveal intertextual connections between Nabokov’s novel The Gift [Dar] and the theoretical and literary legacy of Russian futurism perceived through Heavy Lyre [Tyazhyolaya lira], a collection of verse by V. Khodasevich. To do so, the author attempts to demonstrate the implementation of the method called ‘the consonance of concepts’ in The Gift, with the example of the concepts bormochet [mumbles] — prorochit [prophesies], establish their intertextual links to Heavy Lyre, and define the constructive role of ‘the consonance of concepts’ in Nabokov’s works. The extract from the novel that proves crucial for the article’s objective describes F. Godunov-Cherdyntsev’s encounter with a blind beggar, who asks him for money. The extract reveals a reminiscence of the Futurist method of ‘the consonance of concepts’ with the example of the consonant words bos [barefoot] — bog [god], which, in turn, help to decipher the semantic implications of the bormochet — prorochit motifs. V. Cherkasov also identifies the method’s literary and critical functions: pointing to its constructive nature in Khodasevich’s Heavy Lyre, Nabokov reveals the book’s modernist origins.

The article analyses and interprets the short story Beneficence [Blagost] (1924), penned by V. Nabokov during his Berlin period of emigration. The author selected the short story for several reasons. Firstly, it appeals as an example of genre transformation of a love story and demonstrates the multidimensionality of the concept of love; secondly, the protagonist arouses interest as an empathetic narrator whose utterances reveal a complex structure; and thirdly, due to the ways in which the meaning of the title correlates with the decoded concept of the world’s tenderness. The writer’s strategy and the poetics of emotions uncover the core meaning of a reminiscence as a cognitive act and transformation of the hero’s consciousness, i. e., his understanding of love and happiness. The protagonist proceeds to discover happiness on a different plane of existence — in the relationship of ‘me and the world,’ in the harmony of the universe, and in the convergence of the micro- and macrocosms. Taking this into account, it appears that Nabokov’s portrayal of tenderness is endowed with a sacred meaning and reaches completion in the formula ‘me for the Other.’

The article is devoted to ‘Nabokov’s imprint’ on several contemporary novels (K. E. Russell’s My Dark Vanessa, Lin Yi-Han’s Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, and V. Springora’s Consent: A Memoir of Stolen Adolescence) that revisit the story of Lolita and relate it on behalf of the underage girl sexually abused by her teacher or tutor. The author explores the poetics of the novels and their emergence from feminist discourse and particularly the campaign against sexual harassment and rape culture that started in 2017 using the hashtag #MeToo. Detailed in P. Boyarkina’s study is the image of an unreliable narrator, brilliantly exploited by Nabokov, who teases his reader by letting them decide on the trustworthiness of the narrator’s story and where the author’s view ends and the narrator’s version begins. Modern novels tend to complicate things even further: the unreliable narrator successfully manipulates both the reader and the female protagonist who tells the story of love and abuse.

Only in the late 1980s, in the now legendary ‘perestroika’ times, the works of M. Osorgin began to be published in the USSR. The novel Sivtsev Vrazhek (1928), now rightfully considered the main artistic achievement of the writer, has gone through several publications and become the object of literary study included into academic programmes on Russian émigré literature. However, lost in the flow of ‘returned literature,’ Sivtsev Vrazhek did not cause a furor. It is hardly possible to talk about its popularity in modern Russia. Meanwhile, this novel is the only work of post-revolutionary Russian emigration which became an international bestseller in the interwar twenties. In his article, N. Melnikov focuses on Russian and English-speaking critics’ perception of Osorgin’s novel Sivtsev Vrazhek. On the basis of extensive material, such theoretical and literary problems as the interpretation of a work of art, the formation of a writer’s reputation, the phenomenon of success, etc. are comprehended.

The article dwells on portrayals of Russian women in the interwar discourse of the Polish press. The study attempts to reinterpret them and deconstruct the gender stereotypes responsible for inaccuracies in the depictions. Analysis of the assessments offered for the phenomenon of post-1917 Soviet emancipation by the interwar Polish press (national-Catholic, leftist, and feminist publications) centres on discussions of emancipation in the labour market and Russian women taking over typically masculine roles. Among the ‘female’ topics directly related to the perception of the new Soviet culture was the ‘Soviet experiment:’ women gained access to what used to be exclusively male professions. Sadly, reports of Soviet emancipation in the selected titles often boil down to a few suggestions about changes in the Soviet woman’s life described as Bolshevik manipulations. It appears, therefore, that Polish-Russian cultural contacts were compromised by the Polish disorientating gender role models and related ideas of the Polish identity, distorted by the misogyny, nationalism, patriarchalism, and Catholic traditions of Polish culture.

The article examines the sociocultural parameters of actualising literary classics in the blogosphere, primarily as ‘communication wares.’ The researchers consider the original goals of bloggers targeting large untrained audiences on the popular Yandex.Zen platform. Such objectives are inspired by the taste and needs of the mass-market consumer. This study covers such popular blogs as Pravoe Polusharie Introverta [The right hemisphere of an Introvert], Kulturologiya Dlya Vsekh [Cultural studies for all], Arkhivarius Kot [Cat the Archivist], etc. The selected blogs contain examples of several actualisation strategies used for literary classics: ‘debunking,’ or ‘scandalous actualisation;’ simplification or depiction that conforms to a set of stereotypes (stereotypisation); and ‘informative/enlightening’ popularisation that uses biographical and historical methods. D. Ivanov and D. Lakerbay argue that any method with an ambition to create a comprehensive analysis of a literary classic using a plain, ‘mass user-friendly’ language is doomed.

 The article is concerned with the reception of V. Belinsky’s writings and his role in Russian literature. Formally it is written in response to A. Lyubzhin’s article ‘To bury Belinsky’ [‘Pokhoronit Belinskogo’], published on the website gorky.media on 1 February 2021. The subject is not new, and the dispute about the significance of Belinsky’s legacy for Russian literature is likely to continue. The purpose of this dialogue is neither to canonise nor dismiss (‘throw off the steamboat of modernity,’ in Mayakovsky’s words) Belinsky but rather to rethink our own ideas about literary history and in doing so to actualise its contemporary theory. It is for this reason that the status of the term ‘realism’ is examined here in depth. Following V. Tolmachyov’s lead, the author of the article proposes to revise existing views of the relationship between realism and naturalism — two principal movements defining literature in the mid to late 19th c. — in order to discard the realistic paradigm founded on artificial construct at odds with artistic principles.

The review offers a critical study of G. Shengeli’s collected reports and feuilletons From the Courtroom of the Moscow Province Court [Iz zala Moskovskogo gubernskogo suda], which reveals a hitherto unknown interest of the renowned poet, translator and scholar of versification.Very little has been known about Shengeli’s rather prolific career as a courtroom reporter: the scholar who compiled the book, Anton Marinin, conducted research that resulted in the discovery of the poet’s authorship, convincingly proven across several pen-names. Writing reports and feuilletons, especially at the time of NEP, was a popular side job among big-name authors: it was exciting, had a prominent social angle, and paid well. But what is the appeal of these courtroom reports today? What is their relation to the ideas at the core of the novels The Twelve Chairs [Dvenadtsat stuliev] and The Little Golden Calf [Zolotoy telyonok]? Finally, can a product of a side job undertaken solely for quick and easy money claim eternal relevance? The reviewer contemplates and answers all these questions.

The review deals with the first book in the new series The School Library of Gogol’s Memorial House. A teacher’s handbook, it offers relevant instructional material to help structure Gogol-themed lessons as well as ideas for extracurricular activities. The handbook summarises the factual background of individual works and supplies them with a historical and cultural commentary, sample questions and assignments accompanied with an essential literary critical glossary, and a quiz. Excerpts from Mann’s articles and monographs are supplemented with instructive and creative assignments for students, designed to improve language skills, encourage research initiatives, and develop creative potential. Mann’s works teach the skill of analysing text as a unity of form and content. The handbook also contains dictionaries: one explains obsolete words used in Gogol’s works, another comprises the definitions of literary terms, and yet another is concerned with names. Included in this edition is an article on the theoretical and practical significance of Mann’s scholarly output. The handbook will be of use with a basic as well as specialised curriculum.

In focus of this review is a co-authored monograph that examines novels by 19th to 21st c. English authors in order to trace the key evolutionary changes of this world literature’s most popular genre. In his introduction entitled ‘A well-made English novel’ [‘Khorosho sdelanniy angliyskiy roman’], Prof. B. Proskurnin shares several constructive ideas. He mentions that, at the very outset, the single requirement for the contributors was that they should choose the authors who interest them the most and inspire a study of their oeuvre through the prism of preserving the national genre memory and as an innovator of the genre. The volume explores unique artistic characteristics of the selected works which represent milestones in the history of the novel and sheds light on the functioning of the English novelistic tradition, nurtured by the creativity and innovative approach of writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Antony Trollope, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, David Herbert Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Ian McEwan, and Hilary Mantel.

The review is devoted to a seminal event in Russian studies of Italian literature — the publication of a versified translation of Filostrato and Diana’s Hunt, Boccaccio’s first two works. Such a translation appears in the Russian language for the first time, thanks to the work of A. Triandafilidi and V. Oslon. Diana’s Huntis Boccaccio’s first completed poem in terza rima, a verse form previously used only by Dante. Filostrato holds a special place not only in Boccaccio’s legacy but also inworld literature. With its Graecised title and written in ottava rima, this narrative poem marks the departure from the classical literary canon in favour of folk urban culture and features the narrative devices and types of characters that would permeate subsequent Renaissance works. At the core of the poem is the story of Troilus and Cressida, one of literature’s archetypal couples of doomed lovers (along with Tristan and Isolde and Romeo and Juliet). The story later inspired Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.

The review is concerned with the book ‘In the Whole World, There’s Only One Armenia…’ [‘Na svete lish odna Armeniya…’] — a collection of scholarly and critical articles by the renowned scholar of Russian-Armenian literary connections Magda Janpoladyan. In focus of the book are works by those Russian poets who visited Armenia and, having fallen in love with the country, decided to spend the rest of their lives in close contact with this region and its culture and literature. With the help of the poets’ epistolary legacy, reminiscences, and literary output, as well as other sources, the author creates a unique overview of Russian-Armenian cultural ties. The book names V. Bryusov, O. Mandelstam, S. Gorodetsky, S. Marshak, V. Zvyagintsev, M. Petrovykh, E. Nikolayevskaya, M. Matusovsky, M. Dudin, A. Gitovich, S. Lipkin, A. Tarkovsky, B. Chichibabin and others as poets whose life and work reveal a profound impact from an unforgettable encounter with Armenia.