The paper examines descriptions of the main heroine’s physical appearance in L. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina through the prism of E. Levinas’s philosophy. The starting point of the study is defined by Anna’s question, “Can one ever tell anyone what one is feeling?” The author analyzes the relationship between the visual and the verbal in a depiction of inner experience. Levinas’s belief that the epiphany of the face is a whole language in itself presents a possibility to demonstrate how an unspoken feeling becomes visibly present and is transformed into a medium for ethical meaning. The analysis focuses on scenes where the characters’ facial expressions offer insights into what cannot be put into words. In this context, mimetic representation appears as a distinct mode of constitution of meaning, in which the face functions as an ethical appeal and a call to responsibility. Therefore, Tolstoy’s poetics of the face is interpreted as a space for encountering the Other, where the aesthetic dimension is inseparable from the ethical one, which in turn offers a new perspective for the exploration of the interaction between mimesis, language, and responsibility in Tolstoy’s artistic world.

Journalist and literary critic D. Efremova examines the writing of the ‘new thirty-year-olds,’ or millennial prose, as a thematic and stylistic phenomenon. Analyzing the generation’s landmark novels of the 2020s (V. Bogdanova’s The Season of Poisoned Fruit [Sezon otravlennykh plodov] and Seven Methods of Soul-Pickling [Sem sposobov zasolki dush], M. Lebedeva’s It’s Dark There [Tam temno], and S. Pavlova’s Hunger [Golod], among others), Efremova identifies their common characteristics and defining features. The article also takes a close look at the critical reception of millennial prose and discusses the genre’s marketing component: the latter aspect is justified in the eyes of the critics who argue that millennials “are ushering in a new world of open and approachable literature, where each text gets its special reader” (K. Gritsenko). In her study of the ‘new thirty-year-olds,’ Efremova discovers that the new millennial novel, preoccupied with gender, generations, and a social and psychological agenda, is searching for the voice of the generation in a dialogue between the author and the reader.

A regular contributor of Voprosy Literatury, E. Konstantinova interviews poet I. Perunova about her verse and 20th-century Russian poetry (A. Akhmatova, B. Pasternak, and the metametaphorists), as well as the common motifs that typify modern poetry. The interview also explores the main themes of Perunova’s lyric poetry, including signs of the times, the Creator and the creation, poetic risks, the role of poetry in life, and creative freedom. The poet and the critic engage in an in-depth conversation about the psychology of creative work, the problem of artistic truth, and the quality of lyric text (whether the reader’s inner world has been revised or revitalized by a literary work is, argues Perunova, the main criterion of artistic truth). Incorporating concrete quotes and views of other modern poets, such as I. Melamed and V. Pukhanov, into their discussion, the interviewer and the interviewee move on to subtle matters and sum up Perunova’s personal and poetic creed in a phrase that serves as this interview’s title: “The darker the night, the brighter the fireflies.”

Critic and scholar of 20th-century Russian poetry E. Pogorelaya talks about little-known events in the life of poet Anna Barkova: namely, her relationship with N. Zhidelyov, a Bolshevik who chaired the Ivanovo-Vosnesenk Revolutionary Tribunal and a dedicatee of her first collection of poetry A Woman [Zhenshchina] (1922). Staff journalist and chronicler of the newspaper Rabochiy Kray under A. Voronsky’s editorship in 1918–1921, Barkova produced several poetic cycles, where the motifs of parting with the past are intertwined with the themes of first love and self-identification as a poet. The article describes the transformation of Barkova’s poetics and subjects following her acquaintance with Zhidelyov and explains which facts of his biography and details of her and Zhidelyov’s personal relationship particularly resonate with the young lyric poet. Biographical information is supplemented with an analysis of Barkova’s early poetic work and a summary of the response A Woman received from Proletkult-affiliated poets and other readers.

The study of critic and literary scholar K. Shakaryan is concerned with I. Selvinsky’s works created during his experimentation with Constructivism, an artistic movement he essentially co-founded and headlined. The scholar offers a radically new interpretation of Selvinsky’s Constructivist oeuvre (notably, his novel in verse Fur Trade [Pushtorg] (1927) and tragedy Komandarm-2 (1928)), considering them components of the same experiment. This lyric experiment, argues Shakaryan, is constituted by Selvinsky’s attempts to create works on a momentous scale that are defined by a perfect balance between the big truth of the day and the small truth of an individual. Interestingly, Selvinsky was more preoccupied with the latter, in a way hardly expected from a champion of revolution. Possessing a unique standing in the literature of his day, as well as artistic insight and personal integrity, Selvinsky was able to foretell, as early as in the 1920s, many of the woes that were to befall his country and its people in the subsequent decades.

The article discusses two stories by V. Shukshin, An Invitation for Two / The Sunday Blues [Priglashenie na dva litsa / Voskresnaya toska] (1962) and The Dogged One [Uporny] (1973), in their contemporary context of the polemic between the ‘physicists’ and the ‘lyricists’ [lyric poets]. The earlier story exists in two versions: while the conflict resolves itself in the first draft, the 1973 story clearly shows that the ‘physicists’ and the ‘lyricists’ can never reconcile. Monya Kvasov, a naïve and excentric inventor of a perpetual motion machine, triumphs over the pragmatic but narrow-minded ‘physicists.’ The conflict appears to have intensified in Shukshin’s later works: philologist Stepanov, a character from the film script of Happy Go Lucky [Pechki-lavochki], bemoans the proliferation of the “almighty fizmat [a department of, or a qualification in, physics and mathematics].” Shukshin felt he lived in a “mechanized era,” when “remembering your soul” becomes especially important.

The article sets out to trace the imaginary boundaries of England in W. E. Henley’s Pro Rege Nostro, two drafts of D. H. Lawrence’s story England, My England, and G. Orwell’s essay England Your England. Unlike a proper cartographical object, “England” of these four texts cannot be mapped with any accuracy as its boundaries tend to shift even within a single work. The dimensions of “my England” across Henley’s, Lawrence’s, and Orwell’s works vary between a quarter of the globe, highlighted in red, and a dot on the map (marking an old cottage in southern England). The root cause of this ambiguity lies in the specific circumstances that shaped English national identity in a certain historical period, in particular, the coexistence of two “English empires:” Great Britain and Britain’s overseas empire (K. Kumar). Henley’s appeal to “England, my England” provokes a highly emotional contemplation of England and what is English. Each text is believed to offer a practical solution that completes the building of national unity by drawing on the fervour in Henley’s poem, the idea of a utopian recovery of the nation in Lawrence’s story, and the consistently developed feeling of national unity in Orwell’s essay.

The paper examines comparatist ideas in the works by scholar of English literature N. Mikhalskaya. She was blessed with “the gift of the essential” — the talent to express the core idea in a manner that is both laconic and devoid of simplification. The intersemiotic comparatistics of the 20th and 21st centuries can be considered comparative studies of contexts. In her work, Mikhalskaya does not limit the ideas of comparative studies to comparison of literatures. Broadening her interests beyond literature, Mikhalskaya embarked on interdisciplinary imagological studies. The resulting research can be traced back to A. Veselovsky’s famous ‘counter-current’ theory. For instance, Mikhalskaya reconstructed intercrossing national myths: the English myth of Russia and the Russian myth of England. With reliance on Milkhalskaya’s hypotheses about the trends in English culture in the early 20th century, the author suggests a connection between the new configuration of elements in the English national character and reception of Russian classical literature.

The article analyzes the evolution of the author’s intent in the duology The Twelve Chairs [Dvenadtsat stulyev] and The Little Golden Calf [Zolotoy telyonok] in the literary and political context of the late 1920s and early 1930s. At the centre of the study is the fate of Ostap Bender and the reasons for the changed endings of the two novels. The authors consider ideological control and restrictive censorship of the day as deciding factors behind Ilf and Petrov’s artistic choices. Also examined in detail is the power struggle among the Communist party elite as well as the transformation of the state economic policy. The scholars demonstrate that Bender’s originally planned demise at the end of the first novel followed the premise that a negative hero cannot win. The study also explores the problem of the unrealized “third Bender novel,” its hypothetical interpretations in other writings by Ilf and Petrov, and the reasons why the plan was never carried out.

The article is devoted to Genrikh V. Baranovich (1860–1912), a turnof-the-century writer who remained in obscurity for over a hundred years despite the popularity of his collection Near Gold on the Amur [Okolo zolota na Amure] with Siberian readers. By reintroducing his name into contemporary scholarly discourse, A. Urmanov is adding a missing fragment that allows for better appreciation of the wealth and diversity of early 20th-century Russian literature. The study explores the system of motifs that reveals direct descendance of Baranovich’s book from the Russian classics in terms of its themes and poetics. Comparative analysis facilitates the conclusion that a combination of local content and national artistic codes enhances the ideological and conceptual significance of the cycle and charges it with a universal meaning. Creative use of Gogolian and Chekhovian motifs in depictions of the exotic Amur region ensures the book’s spot in the global cultural dialogue and provokes interest among the writer’s contemporaries and modern-day readers alike.

This review discusses three publications devoted to Pskov and the surrounding region — a Russian borderland. The dictionary features lexicographical matches in the dialects of the RussoBelarussian borderland. The collection of travelogues demonstrates that local phenomena signify trends of a larger culture. A. Razumovskaya’s monograph explores Pskov-specific mythology and, more broadly, the “Pskov text” in Russian literature.

The review deals with O. Bogdanova’s monograph published as the ninth issue of the scholarly series The Russian Estate in the Global Context, founded by the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the RAS. The review emphasizes the book’s innovative quality and significance of the proposed thesaurus methodology for contemporary studies of the estate and dacha in Russian and world literature. The reviewer praises the scholar’s systemic description of the evolution of the “estate text” in Russian literature (19th-century classics, Silver Age legacy, Soviet literature, and writings from the late 20th century and the 2020s). The scholar identifies promising themes for further research: “a garden city,” “an estate as a Eurasian phenomenon,” etc. Bogdanova’s work is viewed as an ambitious attempt to establish a new field of study, provisionally named “a literary estate and dacha.”

The review remarks on the relevance of research into the work of female authors active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their study in the social, ideological, and cultural contexts of that historical period. The book not only explores the genesis of female creativity, but also identifies new strategies, tactics, and models of agency characteristic of Silver Age female writers, an area of research that is bound to yield many scholarly discoveries in the future. The contributors examine a wide range of genres, from journalism to criticism to autofiction. Examples are found in the works by renowned female authors as well as more obscure writers, which ensures a more objective look at the typifying features of the literary process of the day and the role female writers played in it.

Edited by V. Molodyakov, the book of poetry by B. Livshits (1886/87–1938) entitled Noon at Crotone [Krotonskiy polden] is reproduced for the first time since 1928 and faithfully observes the poet’s intentions. It contains all of his known poetic works. The book draws from earlier collections, including Marsyas’ Flute [Fleyta Marsiya] (1911), Sun of Wolves [Volchie solntse] (1914), and Patmos (1926). It also incorporates Medusa of the Bog [Bolotnaya meduza] — out of which some poems appeared in 1922 under the title From Marshy Bogs [Iz topi blat] — and the manuscript Kartvelian Odes [Kartvelskie ody], which went unpublished after its 1935 submission to Zarya Vostoka Publishers. These segments reproduce the composition of the first editions of Marsyas’ Flute and Sun of Wolves. Dedicated chapters contain poems associated with the original design of Medusa of the Bog and Patmos. A special section was created for Humorous Verse. Co-authored. The edition is supplied with an extensive commentary that considers research completed to date by various scholars, and for the first time ever explains the context of the origins of the poet’s imagery and philosophy.

A. Kulagin’s book is resolutely postmodernist. The author applies methods of historic-literary description to the modern writer: literary criticism may be oblivious of the distance between subject and object, but the history of literature recognizes it without fail. Kulagin both shortens the distance and engages in a direct conversation with the author (A. Kushner), which defines the entire book. In terms of genre attribution, Kulagin’s book resembles a zine — a collection of articles on historicliterary and didactic-methodological topics, cultural studies and memoirs. This, too, goes against the historic-literary canon. The fact that it is a second book with the identical title suggests that this study should be viewed as an aperiodic chronicle by the same author. Kulagin’s work demonstrates the validity of the postmodernist presumption of text as a collage of other people’s words, while attempts to identify the source of a quote often reveal the method to be hopeless and redundant.

The review discusses reminiscences of Irina Shostakovich, recorded by Elena Yakovich. The reviewer considers the book’s structure and analyzes the parallel biographic descriptions (belonging to two distinct periods, before meeting Shostakovich and the years spent together). The love story of the composer and his last wife is shown as a series of “uncanny coincidences” — common experiences, both the ghastly everyday with its repressions, arrests, the Siege of Leningrad, etc. and metaphysical, that inevitably defined a spiritual affinity of two people caught between the millstones of the 20th century. A philologist by training, I. Shostakovich lists her husband’s musical and literary acquaintances and preferences with ease. She names A. Akhmatova, A. Solzhenitsyn, Y. Yevtushenko, M. Yudina, B. Britten, M. Rostropovich, and many others. In her testimony, life and death walk hand in hand, partly because the couple, reluctant witnesses of a tragic period in the country’s history, lived a “truly torturous life.”