The Modern Literary Process in China in the Works of Russian Literary Scholars-Sinologists: Features of the Research Perspective

Abstract

Contemporary Chinese literature is actively studied by Russian literary critics, whose view of a foreign cultural text inevitably differs from that of their Chinese colleagues. As a result, on the one hand, new original interpretations appear, and on the other, certain gaps, “blind spots” (Paul de Man) of perception of Chinese literature become obvious. The purpose of the article is to describe the perspective of the vision of Chinese literature,which manifested itself in the studies of Russian literary scholars. To achieve this goal, the methodological theses of non-classical hermeneutics and receptive aesthetics are used. Based on the material of studies devoted to modern Chinese literature and published in Russia, similar attitudes of Russian scientists are revealed: the attitude towards defining the problem of a person and his place in life in texts; understanding the importance for Chinese society of continuity, dialogue between tradition and modernity; orientation to identify multilingualism in the artistic understanding of the modern world, the influence of Western culture on Chinese; the view of Chinese women’s literature as evidence of a change in the social status of women. At the same time, the view of modern Chinese literature as human-centered does not fully correspond to the real literary situation in which both Confucian and Marxist ideas of collectivism continue to remain in force. Researchers of the latest Chinese literature do not always consider it in conjunction with the period of the 1950s–1970s, while for the Chinese, the 1950s – present time is a holistic stage of cultural development. The identification of traces of the influence of Western theory of literature and aesthetics is not accompanied by an awareness of the specifics of their adaptation (Sinification).