P. N. BERKOV’S REPORT DELIVERED AT THE SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON THE HISTORY OF PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES ON OCTOBER 31, 1966

The Commission on the History of Philological Sciences at the Department of Literature and Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences, established in the mid-1950s, dealt primarily with the history of Russian literary criticism. P. N. Berkov was one of the most active members of the Bureau of the Commission and repeatedly delivered reports at its plenary sessions. The autographic text of P. N. Berkov’s report is polemically sharpened and very bold for the time, raising questions concerning the public authority of literary criticism and the scholarly merits of the philologists associated with Formalism. The report reveals the author’s goal to outline a variety of research approaches and to identify the most important and fruitful academic trends, many of which still retain their relevance.

Commission on the History of Philological Sciences, P. N. Berkov, Formalists, history of literary criticism.