The memoir by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal offers an insight into half a century of its history since the time (1975) when the editorial office moved to the upper floor of the famous house built in the Art Nouveau style (1906) in central Moscow, and known by the name of its architect, Nirnsee. Problems of Literature came out among the new publications established in the Thaw after the Stalin era, and, as much as possible, made an effort to retain the liberating tendency in the following decades. The foremost intellectuals brought from oblivion, like Mikhail Bakhtin, set free from prisons and camps of the big terror, like Leonid Pinsky, or just setting out on their career, like Sergey Averintsev, and many others were published in the journal. Igor Shaytanov focuses on the changes the journal went through in the years of ‘perestroika’ and in the new century when he became a member of staff, and when old editors, some of them in the journal since its birth, were leaving one after another. The young editorial staff that took over some 15 years ago, gained experience and continues the renovated tradition of the illustrious journal, deeply rooted in the Russian philological school of historical poetics and with a keen interest in present day literature and critical thought.

In her analysis of Zakhar Prilepin’s collections of short stories, Dogs and Other People [Sobaki i drugie lyudi], and in search of the author’s principal artistic communication strategies, the critic discovers that Prilepin’s method is best described in terms of G. Bateson’s concept of ‘double bind.’ Bateson’s theory concerns receiving conflicting messages within a single act of communication. Similarly, while eliciting an almost exclusively enthusiastic reaction from critics and readers alike, the book remains a profoundly terrifying piece of writing. Gaping wounds, broken bones, flesh and gore, and cruelty and pain determine the book’s emotional spectrum. Zhuchkova notes that, just as in his earlier works, Prilepin employs the technique of swinging between extremes and alternating outbursts of intense emotions: bloodshed and sentimentality, brutality and tenderness, and crudity and childishness. On top of that, the book is rich in semantic interruptions, or gaps, that at once help disguise an uncomfortable truth and leave room for the reader’s creative imagination which might justify the first-person narrator’s behaviour and his treatment of dogs.

The article by the poet and translator A. Ulzytuev discusses the unique features of Buryat-Mongolian rhyme, specifically, the tolgoy kholbokh, which occurs when the beginning rather than the ending of a line of verse rhyme. Tolgoy kholbokh (mn), or tolgoy kholbolgo (bua), literally ‘joining of heads,’ describes rhyming initial syllables, as opposed to final syllables. In his work of introducing this type of rhyme into contemporary Russian poetry, Ulzytuev discovers that, coupled with the traditional Russian ‘end-of-line’ rhyme, the use of tolgoy kholbokh makes it possible to produce authentic translations of Buryat-Mongolian poetry, at the same time enriching the poetic potential of the Russian language. He notes, however, that anaphora-based verse needs freedom of meter. The rhyme that for centuries joined ‘heads’ of poetic lines as the nomads’ tolgoy kholbokh transforms into anaphora in Russian rendering, but remains more vivid and expressive outside of the conventions of Russian or European meter when it roams free in its native ‘landscape’ of intonational rhythm. Ulzytuev includes a detailed study of rhyming and rhythmic choices in his rendering of a hitherto untranslated poem by the Mongolian poet B. Yavuukhulan.

The article analyzes the influence of the Holy Russia religious-patriotic discourse on the genesis of Dostoevsky’s Russian idea. More specifically, the study focuses on the version of the ‘Holy Russia discourse’ found in 1830s–1850s Russian poetry and mirrored in one of Dostoevsky’s few poetic declarations — the poem ‘On European Events in 1854.’ The discourse endowed the poem with the motif of heroism and the uniqueness of Russian history, imperial mission, and Orthodoxy. Dostoevsky’s poem demonstrates ideological and poetological innovation in that it actualizes the motifs of suffering and sacrifice, refers to Christ as the moral ideal, and features a polyphonic exchange between the voice of the ‘small man’ and that of the author. Further exploration of the Holy Russia discourse continues throughout Dostoevsky’s subsequent works, both fictional and non-fictional. The scholar posits that, while determined by the religious-patriotic discourse of Holy Russia, Dostoevsky’s Russian idea at the very outset rejects one of key premises of that discourse — namely, the emphasized distinction between ‘ours/ourselves’ and ‘foreigners/others.’ Korolyova suggests that the plots of the writer’s ‘Great Pentateuch’ should be interpreted as artistic experiments testing the Russian idea.

The article hypothesizes that the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s ‘Notes from Underground’ [‘Zapiski iz podpolya’] became a literary prototype of the main hero in A. Gorky’s final novel. The author opines that both books are concerned with analysis of a schizoid character, such as described in A. Lowen’s Betrayal of the Body. The ‘underground man’ and Klim Samgin share a lot of psychological traits: the syndrome of schizoid alienation since both shun society; a pronounced ‘polyphonic character’ that unites them as fellow ‘split self’ sufferers (R. Lang); an inferiority complex; and delusions of grandeur. Further common psychological traits typify Samgin and the ‘underground man’ alike: ‘emotional frigidity’ and ‘stone-like impassiveness’ towards others. The author analyzes the characters’ psychological traits, often manifested in their autistic daydreaming as a way to escape reality. Lesevitsky suggests that Gorky adopts certain aspects of the author’s view of the protagonist realized by Dostoevsky in his novella.

The article discusses the bulk of parodies emulating K. Simonov’s poetry and penned by historians of literature such as V. Bakhnov, L. Lazarev, S. Rassadin, etc. Korzhova explains that, following the genre’s peak popularity and productive comprehension in the 1920s, scholarly interest is rekindled in the 1960s–1970s, when Problems of Literature [Voprosy Literatury] becomes the medium for discussions about the genre’s potential. The journal sides with L. Grossman’s thesis that claimed that a parody, ‘undoubtedly, constitutes a creative evaluation of a written work’ and publishes studies that examine parodies of verse by K. Simonov, a leading Soviet lyrical poet. In her analysis of the parodies, which exaggerate and mock the signature traits of Simonov’s poetics, the scholar identifies elements of the poet’s idiostyle that is ultimately targeted by the parodists: the lyrical hero’s unparalleled resilience and fortitude, the brutally realistic depictions of battle scenes, and overly rationalized love poetry. Korzhova also notes that the authors of the best parodies not only succeed in pinpointing the key motifs and certain aspects of Simonov’s poetics but also hint at the genesis of his verse.

The article celebrates the scholarly legacy of the philologist Elena Dushechkina, an authority on the genre of Christmas story and the ‘Christmas culture’ of Russian literature. It is mainly inspired by the publication of the late scholar’s four books in 2023: Three monographs and a collection of selected articles were published by Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie thanks to the efforts of E. Belousova (Dushechkina’s daughter). Stroganov believes, therefore, that the time has come to assess and recognize Dushechkina’s scholarly input into the corpus of Russian ‘Christmas philology:’ it was in her research, he stresses, that a pivotal change occurred and the focus shifted from literature pure (or slovesnost in Dushechkina’s definition) to literature and life, thus reflecting the 1990s’ anthropocentric trend in post-modern studies of the humanities. Following Dushechkina’s scholarly career closely, Stroganov finds that the vibrancy and originality of her works stem from her constant disregard of historical and philological canon rather than strict adherence to the latter.

The article explores the semiotics of tea in the Russian literature of the late 18th — first half of the 19th cc. and traces the origins of the tea tradition as part of social and household lifestyle. The study analyzes contextualized mentions of tea drinking in the works by V. Narezhny, M. Chulkov, and A. Izmaylov, positing that it is only in fiction that the ‘tea storyline’ eventually receives specialized means of expression and memorable stylistic features as it becomes semantically conceptualized. The tea theme is viewed through the lens of 18th-c. prose and 19th-c. memoirs from before 1851, while its poetic representation in daily life is illustrated by A. Pushkin’s works, where its recurrent characteristics crystallize and gain aesthetic meaning. Mekhtiev suggests, for example, that the metaphoric tea subject spans phenomena as contrasting as idyll and tragedy, as if upholding the perennial quartet of birth — life — death — resurrection.

The poet Oleg Okhapkin (1944–2008) and the journalist and literary critic Evgeny Vagin (1938–2009) belong to the so-called Leningrad samizdat. Two recently discovered letters from Okhapkin are addressed to his friend Vagin and contain the former’s comprehensive comments on his symbolic calendar of Russian culture, which follows N. Danilevsky’s and K. Leontiev’s ideas.

According to this calendar, Okhapkin and his contemporaries belong to the Bronze Age of Russian poetry, which explains several recurrent patterns in the unfolding cultural process.

This co-authored monograph is reviewed as a conceptual and holistic study devoted to the literary lifestyle and works of the modern Russian poet Boris Ryzhy. The section ‘Studies’ explores individual aspects of Ryzhy’s poetics — its motif structure, conceptosphere, and intertextual relations, as well as the semantic aura of the meter and the poet’s optics. The section ‘Materials’ contains sources that, hitherto almost inaccessible, are now painstakingly collected and commented.

The review deals with two collections of literary criticism papers published as the proceedings of two workshops held at Leo Tolstoy Museum in Yasnaya Polyana on a regular basis and supported by ASPIR [the Association of Writers’ and Publishers’ Unions of Russia]. The reviewer introduces the new generation of literary critics — graduates of the School — and analyzes their contributions in the context of the collections’ predominant subjects. For both books, that implies a conversation about the literature of the ‘new thirty-year-olds.’ While the review mentions key concepts of contemporary literary process, such as trauma literature, travelogue, non-fiction, the novel of a generation, etc., it evaluates them in their development from a critical, or, rather, analytical perspective. Examined in detail are texts by M. Tukhto, E. Minaeva, E. Fedorchuk, and other critics whose papers resulted from the discussions at the Yasnaya Polyana workshops.

The problem of poetic subject features prominently in a number of 20th-c. philological and philosophical studies. In a wider context of other works by scholars of the humanities, the review discusses the general theoretical postulates and specific conceptual and methodological characteristics of Mazzoni’s new book. The author examines contemporary poetry from a broader historical perspective, considering a period from antiquity to the 20th c., and with the interplay of cultural, aesthetic, and social systems in mind. A ‘long-term view,’ Mazzoni’s perspective of choice, on the one hand, and reinterpreted Hegelian and Adornian methods, on the other, allow him to formulate his own model of the transformation of literary process. It is founded in the fluctuations of subjectivity as the underlying category of modern poetry. The relevance of the issues brought up by Mazzoni stems from the fact that they deal with identity crises, depersonalization, phenomena of modern ‘choral subjectivity,’ ‘group subjectivity,’ etc.