A.S. Pushkin in the perception of “Russian Harbin”

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to give an idea of the criticism and journalism of “Russian Harbin”, dedicated to Pushkin, as well as to determine the place that the poet’s personality and work occupied in the spiritual culture of emigrants. Russian emigrants regularly spoke out on the topic of Pushkin and for decades held a Day of Russian Culture associated exclusively with the name of the classic. A significant result of the study is the discovery of not only professional, but also journalistic and reader criticism, previously unknown. The conclusion that the author comes to is that, as A.P. Grigoriev once said (“Pushkin is our everything”), for the Russian residents of Harbin the “idea of existence” in a foreign land really mattered. Based on methods of description, as well as philosophical phenomenology, the cultural, historical, aesthetic and literary parameters of the works are comprehended. The Russian emigration has a serious tradition of studying the artistic and aesthetic heritage of the first wave of Russian emigration, but the aesthetic thought of the “Russian Harbin” is not convincingly integrated into this tradition. Russian literary scholars and foreign Slavists paid attention mainly to Pushkin studies of Russian emigration to Europe. The eastern line of Pushkin studies is considered as part of the literary heritage of the entire Russian diaspora. Critics of “Russian Harbin” saw in Pushkin an indisputable symbol of cultural Russia; The emigration considered Pushkin's Russia to be a true historical reality. The existing stereotype of the “secondary nature” of literary criticism on the part of eastern immigrants is being overcome. The bibliographic list of works about Pushkin is expanding. The article analyzes articles, including Western emigrants, known only from Harbin periodicals.