The article explores the principal new situation that has emerged in the ‘literary field’ (P. Bourdieu). The authors suggest that, in their discussions, literary scholars have largely overlooked persistent ideological and discursive conflicts as well as the figure of a ‘Kulturträger’ scholar of the humanities as such. The entire field is experiencing an implacable discursive conflict: having global origins, it poses a challenge to national histories, including histories of literature. The discursive and civic creed of the liberal scholarly and artistic elite developed for fifty years, its current makeup defined by complete rejection of the concept of ‘Russia’ and the Russian intelligentsia’s entire traditional legacy, including the core concept of ‘narod’ (common people). The authors argue that fascination with the Western liberal political discourse, when it reaches the intensity of a ‘political religion,’ combined with total alienation from all things national, spells self-inflicted doom for those elites and renders any dialogue impossible, while the prevalence of political consciousness within the ‘framework rules’ of the literary domain bankrupts culture.

Drawing on V. Podoroga’s ‘studies towards a theory of aura,’ the article considers the concept of a magical object and the place of magical objects in the artistic world of the contemporary Russian writer M. Elizarov. Magical objects populating Elizarov’s prose are examined from the viewpoint of their essential characteristics, genesis, and function. The author notes that nearly all magical objects in Elizarov’s books possess qualities that keep humans at a distance and weaken their ties with humans before any of them discovers the object’s magical nature. Elizarov’s magical objects are typified by impracticality, compromised integrity, specific localization, and other characteristics. In his study of objects such as books by a Soviet writer Gromov (The Librarian [Bibliotekar]), a filmstrip (Cartoons [Multiki]), a cassette tape (Dzon), and others, the author discovers that objects are used in Elizarov’s books as artefacts or even participants of rituals, effectively providing tools for a fundamental alteration of a single individual’s reality and, acting together, of reality in its entirety.

The article presents an autobiographical narration by the local historian A. Mertsalov (1847–1906), resident in Vologda region. The manuscript now prepared for publication comes from the Shaytanov family archive. In the article Mertsalov is introduced as a shrewd witness of the crucial events in Russian history in the second half of the 19th century. His school years in the gymnasium can be cross-viewed by other men of letters, Mertsalov’s contemporaries in Vologda, Gilyarovsky, Panteleev, and Kruglov among them. His short experience as a civil servant was followed by a disappointment and a lifelong stay as a small landowner deeply involved in collecting local documents and pondering over Russian history, past and present. Mertsalov was guided by the idea that at the core of the Russian tragedy was laid the authorities’ unwillingness to hear the public opinion that could be voiced by the Zemsky Sobor. As a decisive moment in the flow of Russian history Mertsalov considered the murder of the infant prince in Uglich in 1591 and a faked presentation of the event with Boris Godunov blamed. In a historical perspective, at the turn of the 20th century Mertsalov anticipated the future Russian catastrophic progress due to the uncompromizing radicalism deeply inherent in the national mind.

The objective of this study is to show the evolution of F. Iskander’s idea of the novel Sandro of Chegem [Sandro iz Chegema] over the thirty years it took to finish the book. Devised originally as a collection of ironic sketches about the patriarchal way of life in a mountain village and its legends and prejudices, the book proceeds to re-examine the described events, draw insightful conclusions and project them onto totalitarian society in general. Eventually, the narrative acquires an allegorical and prophetic quality. The article offers an insight into the writer’s creative process, citing his own words and excerpts from the novel to illustrate the author’s philosophical virtuosity. In view of the principal concept, the article draws attention to selected plotlines that underscore the novel’s leitmotif — a person’s yearning for the recovery of moral purity and ethical values, measured up with shame and innocence. The study argues that Iskander was preoccupied with the relationship between the human and the soul established for everyone in childhood. This issue is supported by the metaphor in the title of the novel’s last chapter, ‘Tree of Childhood.’

The study throws light on the person of V. Titov, an obscure translator of two short stories by the American writer Truman Capote, published in Russian for the first time in the popular Soviet weekly Nedelya in 1963 and 1964. The material not only succeeds in uncovering Titov’s real name, but also establishes facts of his biography that support the version of a chance encounter with Capote during the latter’s visits to the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s. Zakharov believes that Titov was a member of the so-called ‘golden youth,’ a group that interested Capote, who was collecting material for a planned feature in The New Yorker. According to the scholar, the circumstances of their personal acquaintance might have influenced Titov’s decision to familiarize Soviet readers with Capote’s works. The article details the contemporary Soviet censorship conventions for translations of ‘bourgeois authors’ and analyzes special features of Titov’s translations of Capote’s short stories Master Misery and Jug of Silver.

The article poses a question about the semantic and poetological relationship between Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment [Prestuplenie i nakazanie] and Byron’s Cain. The author discovers a multidimensional contact relationship between the two works. Specifically, the devices of a problem-posing plot, the system of motifs, the protagonist’s image, and the ideological charge point to the polemical orientation of the novel towards Byron’s play. This relationship is at its most obvious in the images of the two main characters and their respective motifs. However, while Cain’s character appears ‘monolithic,’ single-minded, with an emphasis on his arrogance, self-reflection, and active protest throughout the play, Raskolnikov’s character has further layers. The author makes an argument that, polemizing with Byron’s depiction of crime as an archetypical human path towards the realization of humans’ irreparable wickedness and, at the same time, exoneration of their life through intellectual searching and action, Dostoevsky proposes a contrasting image of crime as an opportunity for inner revival and, ultimately, spiritual purification and moral recovery.

The article announces the first exclusively scholarly edition of Goldoni’s works in Russian, which is being prepared by A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the RAS. The Year of Sixteen Comedies [God shestnadtsati komediy] constitutes an important milestone in Goldoni’s oeuvre: the playwright experiments with new genre variants and challenges French comedy to an artistic competition, as well as produces a play completely free from masked characters. As if to underscore the significance of the new theatrical season, Goldoni opens with a manifesto drama The Comical Theatre. Interestingly, The Year of Sixteen Comedies has never been published as an entire collection, even in Italian editions of Goldoni’s complete works. As none of Goldoni’s original manuscripts have survived and the scholars’ textual criticism is based on printed works, the author discusses the history of the plays’ authorized editions and explains why, of any two possible versions of the text, the translator chooses the one that meets the dramatist’s final instructions. Concluding the article is a characteristic of existing translations and arguments in favour of their replacement.

Nikolay Gudzy (1887–1965) authored fundamental studies of Russian Symbolism. Drawing on extensive archival and published materials, his innovative research uncovered hitherto unknown topics and ignited the interest of several generations of scholars in the subject. These studies remain relevant to this day, despite the addition of hundreds of new articles and publications to the body of literature on Russian Symbolism in the last few decades. That Gudzy was a renowned scholarly authority enjoying close ties with authors and historians of Russian Symbolism is evidenced by his correspondence and materials from his personal archive. The article sets out to describe his communications with individuals who, either as witnesses or participants, were immediately associated with the history of Russian Symbolism, as well as with scholars who chose this topic for their research — a younger generation of fellow-historians of literature.

The review discusses M. Stroganov’s final monograph on the problem of the genesis and evolution of Russian mass culture. The book details the constructive role of the parodying nature of A. Pushkin’s poem The Black Shawl [Chornaya shal], which his contemporaries perceived as a phenomenon of mass culture. Pushkin’s poem Little Light [Luchinushka] appealed to the tendency of 19th-century Russian intellectuals to adapt ethnographic artefacts to their own cultural needs. The fact that it is possible to draw moral and ethical parallels between the cultural myth of Lomonosov and Pushkin, the practices of treating life as a creative process used by members of the Arzamas Society, as well as N. Mikhaylovsky’s literary-critical discourse, indicates their typological similarity. The principle of rigorism engendered by Saltykov in relation to popular culture ensures its peaceful coexistence with elite culture. The monograph’s general verdict is that classic and mass cultures are essentially united, given their mutual historical, cultural, and social dependence.

Batyushkov is not Sick [Batyushkov ne bolen] is Shulpyakov’s first big ‘literary research,’ in which he sets out to provide the deep insight into Konstantin Batyushkov’s life story. To do this, he extends the biography genre conventions and enriches the text with cultural-historical essays and profound literary-critical analysis of the poet’s oeuvre. Examining facts of the past that bear similarities to the present day, Shulpyakov proceeds with a study of key events in Russian and world history and explores the categories of history, time, memory, and — through the study of Batyushkov’s life — the category of norm. Shulpyakov is fascinated with the protagonist’s duality, namely his spiritual and intellectual identity. Thus, instead of a mentally disturbed Batyushkov relegated to the status of Pushkin’s shadow, the former is shown as a poet whose two volumes were enough to build up his reputation as a classic. The study is especially interesting for scholars as it contains the unabridged version of the diary kept by Batyushkov’s physician Anton Dietrich, published in Russian for the first time.

Kantor’s book is devoted to the problem of choosing Russia as one’s own destiny and remaining loyal to that choice. The book’s leitmotif is the significance of the word in our lives: turning to the word, we continue God’s work, and the writer’s inner freedom and self-discovery at the crossroads of epochs ensures the word’s immortality. Kantor complements his religious interpretation of literature and writing with a cultural-historical interpretation that draws on Mamardashvili’s ideas. The latter argued that the question whether Dostoevsky and Tolstoy loved Russia is nonsensical: He believed both to be Russia — or creators of Russia. Kantor, however, further develops the concept by pointing out that creation is only possible for a loving heart, and that it was love for Russia as a great nation that set Peter I and his successors apart from Lenin, Tolstoy, Herzen, and others who hated Russia or failed to see its greatness. In Kantor’s perception the prevalent thought of Russian Europeans was to accept Russia as their destiny — and his own creed can be deduced from this idea.

The review is concerned with the book about Dostoevsky’s philosophical anthropology, analytical-synthetic reading as a means for its comprehension, the principles of the analysis of a work of fiction, and the levels of its interpretation and commenting. Analytical-synthetic reading suggests text analysis performed within a hermeneutic circle which means to undertake analysis of a detail in the novel’s context and of the novel in the light of the detail’s deep significance; analysis of a work intended for publication in the context of the author’s preliminary drafts and personal notes; and analysis of a text in the context of the author’s entire oeuvre. A broad typological literary and cultural context forms a background for the reviewed analysis of Dostoevsky’s works. T. Kasatkina’s integrity and insightfulness and her thorough and balanced research are enhanced by the scholar’s preoccupation with what other readers make of Dostoevsky’s works. Every one of them can discover new spaces and possibilities in reading this book, authored by a philosopher and theologist who writes with the goal of telling her own story of transformation and guiding her readers down the same path.

A collection of M. Chudakova’s works, this book celebrates the memory of this outstanding scholar. Chudakova examines the pressure mechanisms used by the state against literature: censorship, didactic criticism spewed by pro-government critics, and a special parlance developed by the state. The scholar emphasizes the powers of ‘literary teleology’ that help oppose the pressure on literature. The book discusses various models of writers’ social behaviour and their principles of creative work, which illustrates the process of changing the predominant artistic agenda. Her rejection of conventions in research encouraged Chudakova to study topics and subjects that had remained outside the scope of traditional academic interest. Chudakova’s style is typified by studies animated by human drama and reflections of her unique personal perception of the purpose and meaning of humanitarian knowledge. Despite the diversity of the characters and topics, the book appears conceptually coherent thanks to the integrity of Chudakova’s character and her scholarly authority.