No 3 (2025)
«The unknown people» in the medieval Russian literature
Abstract
The article analyzes the descriptions of «the unknowns» in the medieval Russian literature, beginning with those dwelling in the «countries of the East», in «Shem’s Domain», and those from the faraway lands, Persia, India, Northern Europe and Siberia. There’s a brief introduction to the literary history of the works on these countries ( The Tale of Aphroditian, The Story of the Irania Star, A Journey Beyond the Three Seas by Afanasy Nikitin, the Tale «on the unknown peoples from the countries of the East» etc.). Besides, the description of the quaint anthropomorphic and anthropozoomorphic human-like creatures, dwelling in the remote parts of the inhabited world and having a peculiar appearance and/or lifestyle is considered. These characters were migrated into the Russian letters from the translated versions of The Chronographs, Alexandria, The Tale of the Indian Kingdom . The first original Russian work that mentions the human monsters was the Tale «on the unknown peoples from the countries of the East» that contains both real and mythological facts on the Samoyed people. The article highlights the textual parallels in the description of the exotic nations between the Tale «on the unknown peoples», the Tale of the Indian Kingdom and the other medieval Russian works and the folklore data; it lists the most suggestive types of such creatures: blemmia , the humans with a mouth on the crown of their head, monomers and the Blessed Peoples. Apparently, the source for the descriptions of the exotic people, that later became rather widespread, was the folklore of the Samoyeds. The approach is shared by Academician M. P. Alexeev, who believed it was «plausible» that most of the data from the Tale «on the unknown peoples from the countries of the East» represented «the recording of isolated links of Northern epic cycles». The legends of the blessed (happy) peoples are amid those «isolated links».
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):5-24
5-24
SOCIAL COORDINATES IN LITERATURE: BIOGRAPHIES, INSTITUTIONS, REPUTATIONS
Social History of the 19th Century Russian Literature. Academic Objectives and Perspectives
Abstract
The article outlines prospective expansion of the traditional approaches to the studies of the 19 th century Russian literature, focusing on social aspects. The full understanding of literature of this period can only be gained through the integration of historical, literary and sociological methods, so that literature would be studied not only as an aesthetic phenomenon, but as a social and political institution as well. Traditional literary scholarship, based on the studies of the legacy of the «first-rate» writers, does not seem to offer the full picture of the 19 th century literature, ignoring «minor» authors and a wide range of social and cultural contexts. The article calls for innovative approaches to the social history of Russian literature and for the emergence of new, data-driven approaches to literary studies.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):25-36
25-36
Radstockism in the periodical press of the second half of the 1870s
Abstract
The article analyses the discussions that unfolded in the periodicals in connection with Lord Radstock’s visits to Russia and the propagation of his ideas. Apart from assessing his «teachings», the contributors touched upon various issues related to the life of the modern Russian Orthodox Church, its pastoral activities, the involvement of the congregation in parish life, etc. The article offers detailed analysis of the charitable undertakings that the society expected from the Church, that were implemented though with the support of the female followers of the «high-society schism».
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):37-49
37-49
M. S. Shaginyan’s Poetry as Assessed by the Literary Critics (1900–1920s): Social and Cultural Aspects
Abstract
This article examines M. S. Shaginyan’s pre-Revolutionary poetry. Her books First Meetings (1909) and Orientalia (1913–1922) are considered in their sociocultural context, tracing the paramount importance of the gender and nationality of the author for the books’ reception and the evolution of this reception under the influence of political and ideological factors.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):50-63
50-63
THE HISTORY OF LITERARY CURIA
On the Early 20th Century Plagiarism and A. A. Izmailov’s Parody Gordik and His Sons (Not from Mickiewicz)
Abstract
The article offers extensive historical and literary commentary on the parody by a renowned critic A. A. Izmailov Gordik and His Sons (Not from Mickiewicz) (1905). The parody was a response to the «literary» activities of the «plagiarizer extraordinary», Ivan Kallistratovich Gordik. Archival data and press publications are used to offer a detailed reconstruction of the audacious literary purloining of the novels by I. I. Yasinsky, G. A. Khrushchov-Sokolnikov, as well as to consider the other proven and plausible cases of illegal appropriation of texts in the early 20 th century. The article gives a detailed account of the reception of the scandals and exposures linked to I. Gordik’s name. The data from the Literary Fund and evidence of the contemporaries helped to prove the existence of two brothers, full namesakes: one was a plagiarizer, shamelessly using the works of his brother, the other one was a diligent amateur writer whose literary activities were cut short after the 1903 scandal. The fact makes this disastrous story unique in the history of the Russian literature.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):64-85
64-85
86-106
LATE-PERIOD SOCIAL REALIST PLAYWRIGHTS
The composition of Alexander Vampilov’s plays: escape from the official Soviet aesthetics?
Abstract
The article analyzes the evolution of A. V. Vampilov’s dramaturgy in contrast to the principles of the official Soviet aesthetics. These principles were manifested in the playwriting textbooks of the Vampilov era, as well as in the articles and speeches by theater critics. The article shows that with each new play it’s more and more of a challenge to incorporate Vampilov’s work into the framework of traditional theater. Furthermore, the author’s deliberate deviations from accepted dramatic conventions become more apparent.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):107-117
107-117
Consciousness vs. «consciousness»: Mutations of the socialist realist conflict in the «production drama» of the 1970 s
Abstract
The article deals with the phenomenon of the Soviet «production drama» of the 1970s. Mutations of the core Socialist Realist conflict between «spontaneity» and «consciousness» are analyzed, the key features of the poetics of the most important plays are outlined.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):118-126
118-126
Late Soviet Theater as Reflected by the Bulletin of the Copyright Agency of the USSR (Mid-1970s — Mid-1980s)
Abstract
The article examines the editorial policy of the Theatrical Bulletin of the All-Union Copyright Agency ( Plays from the USSR , At the Theater , Soviet Theater , 1977–1985). It focuses on the recurrent sections of the Bulletin and on VAAP playwrights’ community. These playwrights represented the USSR abroad. We traced the interaction between the late and early Soviet drama and analyzed the partnership network of the Agency, focusing on the demand for the specific plays of the ‘long seventies’.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):127-141
127-141
Публикации и сообщения
1807 E. A. Protasova Letters Concerning the Marriage Proposal by V. A. Zhukovsky
Abstract
The article offers the first publication of the letters of E. A. Protasova to V. A. Zhukovsky, related to his first proposal to her daughter in November 1807. The letters are instrumental for determining the date of this event, the previous, erroneous, dating being 1805. They provide insights into the contents of Zhukovsky’s unpreserved letters where he offers his hand in marriage to Masha Protasova, and into his response to her mother’s refusal. The article is based on ca. twenty previously unpublished letters of M. A. Protasova to Zhukovsky, 1802–1807, and analyzes the dynamics of their relations. It touches on the Russian marriage legislation before and after 1917, as well as on the public sentiments that point to the rejection of the type of marital union that the poet aspired to (between an uncle and his niece).
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):142-152
142-152
Castello Industrial Company in Tifl is (Researching the History of A. S. Griboyedov and P. D. Zaveleysky Project of the Russian Transcaucasian Company)
Abstract
The article deals with the obscure fact of a French citizen Castello establishing a silk-reeling factory in Tiflis in the mid-1820s; for fifteen years (until 1840) it was the only functioning and developing factory, supported by the government and the local authorities. The all but simultaneous emergence of the projects of two economic companies in Georgia (by A. S. Griboyedov and Castello, with only one of them reaching fruition), numerous thematic concurrences in the texts encouraged us to trace documentarily Castello’s activities in Tiflis, in order to discover the possible touch points with Griboyedov. It seems possible that the success of Castello’s project and his business activities witnessed by Griboyedov (in 1826 and 1827) prompted the latter to consider and put to paper his own economic project.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):153-158
153-158
E. Renan and His Russian Connections (Based on Manuscripts)
Abstract
The report quotes the three autographs by Ernest Renan (1823–1892), an outstanding French scholar in humanities, from the Department of Manuscripts, Pushkinskij Dom; Renan had multiple friends and acquaintances amid the Russian intellectuals. Those implied here were E. E. Trubetskaya, the hostess of a well-known salon in Paris, and P. D. Boborykin, a notorious writer and memoirist.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):159-162
159-162
The brothers karamazov in french: translations, anti-translations, re-translations
Abstract
The article focuses on the problems of re-translation of a literary text, i. e. on a new translation of a work that already exists in the host culture in translations, made at the previous stages of literary evolution. The lexeme re-translation might seem misleading, if understood as a reworking of an existing translation. In fact, what is discussed here is one of the key concepts in the theory of literary translation of the new century, with its meaning conveyed in the following motto: while the 20th century was the century of translation, the 21st is the century of re-translation , that is, of the emergence and justification of new translations of classical works of world literature. These general arguments are substantiated through the historical analysis of a specific situation surrounding Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov after the emergence of a new translation, published on November 9, 2023 in Paris by Gallmeister .
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):163-171
163-171
The History of the So-Called «Fudel» Collected Works by K. N. Leontiev: Archpriest Josef Fudel and B. A. Griftsov
Abstract
The article reconstructs an episode from the history of preparing the first collected works of K. N. Leontiev. The main «characters» of the study are the publisher of this collection, Archpriest Josef Fudel, and literary critic Boris Griftsov, whose creative career was at its very beginning. In 1912, both were united by deep interest in Leontiev’s work, which culminated for Griftsov in writing an article about the fate of the philosopher. The semantic center of the small study is the publication of an unknown letter from Fudel (1912).
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):172-177
172-177
Maria Moravskaya’s Animal Poetry in the Context of Her Letters to Maximilian Voloshin
Abstract
The article examines M. L. Moravskaya’s poems about animals intended for children ( Bol’naja , Poproshajki , Apel’sinnaja Strana , Sova ), inspired, as her letters to M. A. Voloshin make clear, by her promenades in the St. Petersburg zoo. The documentary character of the poetic sketches and the connection of these poems with the central motifs of Moravskaya’s lyrics are established.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):178-181
178-181
N. Ya. and O. E. Mandelstam as the Readers of E. A. Baratynsky
Abstract
The article examines marginalia that were not previously introduced into academic circulation, made by N. Ya. Mandelstam in the 1957 of the works by Baratynsky that belonged to her. Both individual underlining and copious notes in the margins are examined in detail, which, on the one hand, comment on the reception of Baratynsky in the poetry of O. E. Mandelstam, and on the other hand, restore some biographical realities associated with the fates of N. Ya. and O. E. Mandelstam.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):182-191
182-191
What does it mean to be a Jew?.. : B. L. Pasternak’s «Jewish Question»
Abstract
The article deals with the «Jewish question» in the life and art of B. L. Pasternak. Following the analysis of epistolary and literary evidence, an assumption is made concerning the specific ambivalent role of the poet’s Jewish origins in his automythology. On the one hand, the feeling of being excluded from the surrounding Christian universe is embedded in Pasternak’s ideas about art and the role of the artist as one of the obstacles within the physical, deterministic world that calls for a creative overcoming. On the other hand, the ancestral links to the ancient Jewish tradition, the Bible and its characters, is perceived by the poet as a cultural asset.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):192-203
192-203
Chinese Poetry Studio of World Literature Publishing House: V. M. Alekseev and N. S. Gumilev
Abstract
The article is yet another contribution to studying the activities of the World Literature Studio, founded in the 1970s by the Russian Literature journal. The authors turn to the ephemeral chronological framework (June–August 1919), that plays, however, a crucial part in the philological scholarship, the history of Russian sinology and the creative biographies of Vasily Mikhailovich Alekseev (1881–1951), a key figure in the history of the emergence of the Russian classical Chinese studies, and N. S. Gumilev (1886–1921), one of the prominent employees of the Gorky’s publishing house, the period of the Studio of Chinese Poetry. The article examines the stages of emergence of the World Literature Studio, the place of the Chinese Poetry Studio in it, V. M. Alekseev’s approaches to teaching and its essence. The Appendix features documents that are important for at least three reasons: they reproduce the voice of the greatest Russian sinologist of the 20 th century; the subject matter itself, especially the translations by the Studio participants, reflects the contemporary approaches to the translation of classical Chinese poetry and narrow down the circle of probable poetic sources of Chinese imagery in the poetic culture of the Art Nouveau era.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):204-219
204-219
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez: Russian Characters and References
Abstract
«The Russian theme» was not the key one is the art of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, yet he did create a Russian character whose mentality reflected that of the author in one of his major novels, The Four Horses of the Apocalypse (1916) and featured the Russian emigres as the principal characters of two novellas, An Old Man from the English Boulevard (1924) and The Devouress (1926); Russian emigres play a major part in his posthumously published novel An Angel with the Golden Wings (1930). The Spanish writer who had spent his final years near Nice, could witness the daily routine of the Russian emigres, talk with them, and that’s why he only goes astray while describing the Revolutionary Russia he had never visited.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):220-224
220-224
Doctors in Daniil Kharms’s inner circle: comments to his notebooks
Abstract
The article cites and explores the new archival data concerning the doctors from Kharms’s inner circle. The data help to verify the popular memoirs of A. Poret and disclaim those of them that depict M. A. Chapot (Dr. Chapot) as a semi-insane ignoramus. The data that is introduced to the academic community negates the concept of Kharms’s dislike for the «official medicine» prompted by the memoirs, and helps to establish the literary models that the memoirists used as their guidelines.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):225-238
225-238
Concerning the Project of Search Engine on A. S. Pushkin’s Manuscripts
Abstract
The article proposes a project of an information search engine for Pushkin’s manuscripts, containing the transcription for each page of the manuscript, along with the data description, including a number of descriptors for the quick search of the page in the database. The transcription is presented in the form that geometrically replicates the original page of the manuscript, which facilitates the search for the correspondence between the fragments of the handwritten page and their decoding. New readings of passages in Pushkin’s manuscripts are proposed.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):239-251
239-251
Обзоры и рецензии
252-255
256-257
V. V. Nabokov’s Literary Genealogy in Research of 2014–2024
Abstract
The article systematizes the results of the intertextual research of 2014–2024 in the works by V. V. Nabokov. The historical and comparative analysis reinforced by linguistical and textological methods is deemed to be the most productive way to analyze Nabokov’s allusions and reminiscences. The researchers’ interpretations of Nabokov’s intertextual techniques depend on their ideas concerning the identification of the implicit author.
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):258-265
258-265
Хроника
International Scientific Conference "Russian Classics of the Second Half of the XIX Century: Biographical and Literary 'Intersections', Critical Reception and Intertextual Connections"
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):266-270
266-270
Russian Classics of the Second Half of the 19th century: Biographical and Literary «Junctions», Critical Reception and Intertextual Links International Research Conference
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):270-274
270-274
The Fifth International Nabokov Readings
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):274-278
274-278
XLIII Nekrasov Conference
Russian Literature. 2025;(3):278-280
278-280