E. Konstantinova interviews V. Zubareva, a poet, literary critic, author of over twenty books, including monographs, poems and prose, as well as winner of several literary awards. The two discuss the essence of literature and the different interpretation it receives in academic research, artistic prose, and poetry, respectively. The interview particularly dwells on V. Zubareva’s new translation of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign [ Slovo o polku Igoreve ] and the Tale’s new concept, according to which, as Zubareva suggests, the author and the narrator are different people and the tale’s real hero is Svyatoslav, who dreams of unifying Russian princedoms, rather than Igor. A US resident of over 30 years, Zubareva also comments on the problem of modern Slavic studies abroad and shares updates on her projects, such as Russkoe Bezrubezhye [ Russian Literature Without Borders ], Orlita, and the Gostinaya literary magazine.
Relying on A. Veselovsky’s definition of drama as being centred on a character rather than action, the author reexamines the Aristotelian definition of comedy and uncovers the innovative nature of Pushkin’s comedy. The study aims to demonstrate the close semblance between Pushkin’s and Veselovsky’s understanding of drama, using the comedy Boris Godunov as an example. Founded in Veselovsky’s works in its theoretical and analytical premises, the article also references contemporary scholarly apparatus, including the latest findings of general systems theory. In her analysis, the author offers a new classification of the dramatic genre and identifies the characteristics of the Pushkinian comedy that make it ‘problematic,’ in the sense of I. Shaytanov’s interpretation of the term. The article also addresses Pushkin’s use of ambiguity about Godunov’s involvement in the assassination of the young prince Dimitry. The author draws a parallel with wave-particle duality, where the decision of whether a particle or a wave is observed depends on the experimenter’s intentions. The poet’s use of ambiguity as a narrative device implies a hidden subplot of a coup d’état.
‘Which way will Russian literature go?’ is the question at the centre of The Tales. It was in the mid-1820s to early 1830s that an argument arose about the popular (genre) stream, which resonated so well with mass audiences. Pushkin creates the persona of Belkin as the collective image of a commercially driven author who utilizes popular subjects of local and foreign origin, much like the writer in A. Pogorelsky’s The Double [Dvoynik]. Having pinpointed the typical features of moral descriptions and transferred them into Belkin’s stories, Pushkin devises various combinations of moral descriptions through depictions of ‘everyday life’, ranging from utter rejection to creative adaptation of the more effective elements of commercial writing. The stories offer three ways for analysis: from the viewpoint of Belkin, who reworks borrowed subjects in the manner of his idol F. Bulgarin; of Pushkin’s Double, who produces the ‘everyday reality’ context; and of Pushkin himself, who weaves those strands together and is responsible for the overall architectonics and subtext of The Tales.
To this day, the ideas of A. Veselovsky’s Historical Poetics [Istoricheskaya poetika] have been confined to philological discourse. V. Shklovsky’s quip that ‘Aleksandr Veselovsky had no pupils, only admirers’ still rings true. The article represents the first attempt at analysing the metaplot of Eugene Onegin, Pushkin’s novel in verse, through the application of Veselovsky’s comparative method. The study seeks to resolve the problem of imitation, which occupied the mind of the novel’s creator, from the viewpoints of the author and his artistic doppelganger the poet. In this regard, a resolution of the dilemma ‘one’s own — someone else’s’ is reached by means of Veselovsky’s comparative approach, which owes its recent revival in scholarly discourse to works by I. Shaytanov. Assimilation of ‘someone else’s’ is explained in the context of Veselovsky’s concept of ‘crosscurrent’ discovered by the scholar during his study of Pushkin’s ideas on the subject. In her examination of ‘imitativeness,’ the author is guided by Pushkin’s understanding of it, as later embraced by Veselovsky; i. e., rather than as a mechanical act, it is viewed as an act of creation, whose purpose it is to reveal the uniqueness of a specific national culture.
This article provides a historical perspective on the famous Chekhovian story that has been previously viewed only as a story of love with the main focus on characters’ psychology. The new approach refers to a historical climate in Russian in the end of 19 century when religion lost its primary value. The conflict between the main characters is interpreted as a conflict between religious and secular mentality. Chekhov talks about a tendency of changing values in society, when the natural man’s mentality dominates the sacramental sphere, declares its morality false, ridiculous and even harmful. Gurov cannot understand Anna Sergeevna’s repentance, because he gravitates towards the progressive pole. The institution of marriage is not sacred for him, and, like for many of his contemporaries, a church wedding ceremony is no more than just a beautiful ritual. Just as another Chekhovian character, Voinitsky, Gurov doesn’t consider cheating on a spouse a great sin. He is a man of modern tendencies. For him, God is an abstract, mythical, speculative, philosophical concept not applicable to his own life that he lives in accordance with the tendencies of a secular society. Critics often associate the image of the dog with Anna Sergeevna, but in reality it is connected rather to Gurov. First of all, the sex of the dog is male, not female (Spitz is a male). Also, in the story, the dog loves his owner, Anna Sergeevna, but he could never understand the reason for her sadness. In the same way, Gurov, though being in love with Anna Sergeevna, would never understand fully what makes her so upset.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.