Creative History Research Articles

Из истории первого сводного текста башкирского народного эпоса «Идукай и Мурадым»

Research objectives: The purpose of the study is to restore the chronicle in the work of the Tatar scholar-encyclopedist, Naki Isanbet (1899–1992), pertaining to the creation and promotion of the consolidated text of the Bashkir folk epic, “Idukai and Muradim”. The research material was based on personal sources: memoirs, correspondence of a folklorist, a summary text of the 1933 edition with author's notes for translators. In the second half of 1920s to the first half of 1930s, Naki Isanbet participated in the first academic project in Russian history to collect, study, and create critical texts of epics of the peoples of the USSR, headed by scientists of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Tatar scientist is rightfully considered a pioneer in this field. Naki Isanbet's textual works on the epic, “Idegey”, have been recognized not only within the USSR, but also abroad. Research materials: The comprehensive text of the “Idukai and Muradim” epic by Naki Isanbet (1933); sources of a personal nature: memoirs, correspondence with a folklorist, etc. The research was conducted using cultural-historical, comparative, and descriptive methods. Novelty of the research: The novelty of our research is found in its comprehensive study of the creative history of the textual work on the “Idukai and Muradim” Bashkir epic, providing the first summary text and the history of this epic’s development. Results of the research: The scientific and historical value of this source has been determined within the framework of the study. The objective and subjective reasons for the dramatic fate of the consolidated text of the Bashkir version of the epic about Idegey are revealed. The structure of the handwritten text in Latin is described. Its plot and compositional features, character system, and artistic features are briefly described. It is demonstrated that Naki Isanbet was the first compiler of the consolidated text of the Bashkir folk epic, “Idukai and Muradim”. A comparative analysis of the editions of the consolidated text of 1928 and 1933 indicates that there was a “general constructive premeditation” aimed at actively influencing the reader, following the established genre and stylistic canon, as was noted by the textual critic. The history of Naki Isanbet’s cooperation with the Academia publishing house eliminates not only one of the “blind spots” in the history of the existence of this consolidated text, but also indirectly characterizes the circle of collaborative contacts of the Tatar scientist with Russian folklorists in 1930.

Zen Thought in The Representative Works of Yasunari Kawabata

The study of East Asian culture is an important theme of contemporary research, in which Japan, as an important part of the East Asian cultural circle, plays a great influence. Yasunari Kawabata is also a famous Japanese writer. His works not only reflect Japanese culture, but also influence many Chinese contemporary writers. This paper studies the history of Zen in Japan, the formation of Yasunari Kawabata’s Zen thought, and the specific embodiment of Zen thought in his works through the methods of literature analysis and the interpretation of Yasunari Kawabata’s famous work “Snow Country”. Yasunari Kawabata has a great connection with Zen culture in both his personal and professional works. Kawabata Yasunari, both personally and in his works, has a great connection with Zen culture. The research in this paper helps readers to better understand Japanese culture and the creative history of famous Chinese writers to better understand the historical and cultural differences that have developed during the formation of East Asian culture and to promote the exchange and interaction between East Asian culture and global culture.

Correspondence to S. A. Tolstoy and T. A. Kuzminskaya: on the Creative History of the Novel “Anna Karenina”

The article examines the unpublished correspondence of S.A. Tolstoy with T.A. Kuzminskaya as the most important epistolary source about the life and work of L.N. Tolstoy, which has not yet been introduced into a wider scientific context. Letters from sisters in the 1870-s. together with the writer’s confessions, they make it possible to reconstruct the history of the creation of “Anna Karenina”: to restore the course of events that influenced the creative process and created a certain spiritual atmosphere during the writing of the novel, to identify the range of the author’s creative interests, which often distracted him from an already begun plan, to see the features of his work rhythm. Letters from S.A. Tolstoy, who has closely observed the writer for many years both in everyday life and during periods of creative passion, creates a complete image of Tolstoy – not only a writer, but also a husband, father, owner of the estate, and gives the reader the effect of being present in an event that has long ago become history. Letters from T.A. Kuzminskaya, conveying the reader’s perception, fit into the numerous responses of contemporaries and at the same time stand out among them due to the closeness of the correspondent to the author’s family. Epistolary communication between two very close people allows us to look at a masterpiece of world literature as part of the Tolstoy family chronicle.

Raising Children for the Communist Party: The Shanghai Animation Film Studio’s Infantilized Style (1950s–1980s)

Studies on Chinese animation repeatedly mention the Shanghai Animation Film Studio’s (SAFS) creative intent of ‘serving children’. However, discussions on the specific child audience the studio serves and the studio’s service methods and objectives are scarce. This article analyses the studio’s creative history and intent from the 1950s to the 1980s, incorporating China’s socio-cultural context and policy formulation. The study uses SAFS creators’ self-narratives and interviews to argue that, during this period, the studio’s creative intent was determined by the Communist Party of China’s directives. To adhere to the Party’s will, the studio’s animation artists overlooked the individuality and diversity of real children and adopted an excessively protective attitude that underestimated children’s self-awareness, cognitive abilities and aesthetic appreciation. The studio staff positioned the audience as lacking autonomy, akin to infants unable to resist ideological indoctrination.

The Novel “Demons” by Dostoevsky: Draft Autograph and Printed Text

The article is a continuation of the textual work on the study of the draft autograph of the novel “Demons” by F. M. Dostoevsky, which began in previous years. It analyzes the specified manuscript in two ways: 1) as an independent handwritten source, which has not yet been published in full and has not received a detailed textual commentary; 2) as a source of the text of the novel “Demons.” The study of the draft autograph is of great interest, as it allows comparing it with the printed sources of the text, analyze the features of the author’s work on the novel’s idea, establish both creative and non-creative (not the author’s) changes in the text, get new information about the creative history of the novel. The draft autograph of the novel “Demons” is one of the most difficult texts in the writer’s creative legacy in terms of handwriting. Separate fragments of this manuscript were published by A. S. Dolinin in 1924 and B. V. Tomashevsky in 1935, and its main part is presented in the form of variants of the novel’s printed text in the first academic Complete Collection of Dostoevsky’s Works. The appeal to the draft autograph made it possible to formulate the main textual problems that arise at this stage of Dostoevsky’s creative process. During the study of the manuscript, inaccuracies of its reading by the publishers were established, including errors affecting the meaning of the author’s text. In addition, the draft autograph is considered in the article as a source of printed text and in relation to the material of lifetime editions of “Demons,” which made it possible to identify the most problematic places in the textual analysis of the novel’s handwritten and printed sources.

The creative history of the cycle "Women leave" from the collection "Where are you going? And where is the window?" by V. A. Sosnory

The article examines archival materials stored in the Central Library of St. Petersburg, which served as the source of V. A. Sosnora's poetry cycle "Women Leave", which is included in the collection "Where did you go? And where is the window?" The work uses biographical, structural-descriptive, descriptivefunctional, comparative-comparative, formal methods, which allows you to cope with the tasks set. Based on unpublished draft materials, the hypothesis is put forward that the initial creative ideas were associated with writing poems or voluminous poems, fragments of which are stored in the archive. The author's further work was related to the breakdown of the material into a number of poems, which were included in the cycle as separate works. The main changes made by V. A. Sosnora at the phonetic, lexical, and syntactic levels are considered in detail. The draft versions and final versions of the poems published in the cycle "Women leave" from the collection "Where did you go? And where is the window?" Working with archival materials allows you to trace the creative evolution of the cycle, the change in the author's idea. Also, in the course of the research, an important conclusion was made, refuting the data that for sixteen years before the publication of the analyzed collection, V. A. Sosnora did not write poetic texts, referring only to prose. Archival materials prove that the author's interest in poetry was not completely lost during this period of time. The conclusions made allow us to correct the creative biography of V. A. Sosnora, fill in the existing gaps. В статье рассматриваются архивные материалы, хранящиеся в ЦГАЛИ СПб, послужившие источником стихотворного цикла В. А. Сосноры «Уходят женщины», входящего в сборник «Куда пошел? И где окно?». В работе использованы биографический, структурно-описательный, описательно-функциональный, сравнительно-сопоставительный, формальный методы, что позволяет справиться с поставленными задачами. С опорой на неизданные черновые материалы выдвигается гипотеза о том, что первоначальные творческие замыслы были связаны с написанием поэм или объемных стихотворений, фрагменты которых хранятся в архиве. Дальнейшая работа автора была связана с разбивкой материала на ряд стихотворений, которые и вошли в цикл как отдельные произведения. Подробно рассматриваются основные изменения, вносимые В. А. Соснорой на фонетическом, лексическом, синтаксическом уровнях. Сравниваются черновые варианты и окончательные варианты стихотворений, опубликованные в цикле «Уходят женщины» из сборника «Куда пошел? И где окно?». Работа с архивными материалами позволяет проследить творческую эволюцию цикла, изменение авторского замысла. Также в процессе исследования сделан важный вывод, опровергающий данные о том, что в течение шестнадцати лет до выхода анализируемого сборника В. А. Соснора не писал поэтические тексты, обращаясь только к прозе. Архивные материалы доказывают, что интерес автора к поэзии не был полностью утрачен в данный период времени. Сделанные выводы позволяют скорректировать творческую биографию В. А. Сосноры, заполнить существующие пробелы.

What Was the Name of the Stationmaster Vyrin in the Book “The Belkin Tales”, Which Makar Devushkin Read?

An article by S. B. Fedotova “Samson or Simeon? (on the name of the stationmaster in Pushkin’s story),” which served as the reason for this publication, was published in No. 2 of the Russkaya literatura for 2024. This article examines the paradoxical variability of the name of the title character (Simeon/Samson) in the story “The Stationmaster” in the 1830s editions and analyzed the reasons for this circumstance. The noted textual incident acquires special significance due to the fact that Pushkin’s work is read by the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel “Poor Folk” (1846) Makar Devushkin, speaking in his correspondence with Varenka Dobroselova about the caretaker Vyrin as an authentic image of himself. Devushkin repeatedly refers to Pushkin’s character as Samson Vyrin. Commentators of “Poor Folk” have long established that the hero of “Poor Folk” reads “The Stationmaster” in the first separate edition of 1831, where, however, as it turned out, the character’s name is Simeon. This contradiction is analyzed in the article in the light of the creative history of Dostoevsky’s first novel.

On the dialogism of genre nature of the concept of “Selected passages from correspondence with friends”: notes on the margins of the book by Iu. V. Mann “In search of a living soul...”

The issue of the genre nature of “Selected passages from correspondence with friends” is one of the oldest, most significant and yet actual problems of studying Gogol’s latest book. The first readers and critics faced this problem in 1847. Since then, interest in the genre of the book has been followed by special attention to its creative history. At the same time, it is well known that the book was created during Gogol’s work on the second volume of “Dead Souls” and that Gogol involved a wide range of close and distant readers in this process. This was discussed by Yu.V. Mann in his book “In search of a living soul: ‘Dead Souls’. Writer – criticism – reader” (published in 1984), where the long-lasting writer-reader dialogue is presented with factual and documentary details. In this context, Yu.V. Mann made observations, that are important for understanding the genre origins of the concept of “Selected passages ...”. Over the 40 years since that, the scholarly stockpile of studying Gogol’s work has been significantly expanded, and now we can appreciate and develop the scholarly resource of Mann’s observations about the dialogical origins of its idea.

(Somo/Topo) Narracje autopoietyczne: podmiot tworzący (jako ciało w sieci przedmiotów)

This article is an attempt at a narrowly-focused application of a critical approach labelled ‘a history of the history of creativity’, formulated by Magdalena Popiel in her study The World of the Artist: Modernist Aesthetics of Creativity (2017). The article highlights the domain of autopoietic narratives – stories told by artists about their own creative performance, which involves projecting one’s own somatic identity and positioning one-self in a given socio-cultural context (community) – and examines the discursive dimen-sions of the creative process in the metanarrations of Tadeusz Peiper and Józef Czecho-wicz, two major poets of the Polish interwar avant-garde. The resulting model of the creative process is then set into the context of contemporary philosophical, anthropo-logical and psychological theories of creativity.

Apollon Maikov and Fyodor Dostoevsky: the Unfulfilled Idea of Short Stories from Russian History

The article examines the creative history of short stories from the Russian history of Apollon Maikov on the basis of epistolary sources and archival materials. The idea of the work emerged in the author’s mind in a discussion with Fyodor Dostoevsky: in letters of 1867–1869 they reflected on Russia’s past and future, the work on the translation of the “Tale about Igor’s Campaign,” the need to create a textbook living history, the central event of which would be the spread of Christianity in Russia. In correspondence with Maikov, Dostoevsky outlined the concept of epics as a literary genre capable of expressing the essence of Russian history and “serving to revive the self-consciousness of the Russian people” and delineated the turning points of history that determined the future of the country. Maikov conceived another version of the description of Russia’s past — a cycle of ten to twelve historical short stories “for children and the people.” He recorded the plan of the work point by point in papers dating from 1868, and outlined it to Dostoevsky in an April letter for 1869. In separate short stories, he intended to reveal the deeds of Alexander Nevsky, Metropolitans Peter and Alexy, Dmitry Donskoy, Ioann III, Ivan the Terrible, Ermak, St. Sergius of Radonezh, Peter I, Catherine II, Suvorov, the events of 1812, the Crimean War and the liberation of the peasants. The author planned to tell the reader about the main events of Russian history and the patriots of Russia, to reveal the supreme destiny of its historical path, the prerequisites for the formation of the Russian national character, to highlight the idea of unity and integrity of all Russian territories. To realize the idea, Maikov processed chronicle legends, epics, folklore sources (for example, anecdotes about Peter I), the works of historians (I. D. Belyaev, K. P. Pobedonostsev, etc.). He thought out the plots in detail, worked through them repeatedly (which is confirmed by the preserved cycle plans for 1868 and 1881), but released from print only two short stories in 1869 (the second story includes four separate plots). Neither Dostoevsky nor Maikov succeeded in carrying out their plans for historical works. But their plans testify to a common understanding of the historical path of Russia — the path of preserving the Orthodox Christian truth in the struggle for identity and independence. Conscious of their moral duty to the fatherland, they considered it their duty to convey to readers the need to feel Russian and the right to be proud of the history of this great country.

Функция и миссия «маленького человека» в романе Булата Окуджавы «Бедный Авросимов»

In the beginning of the article we correlate Okudzhava’s story about the creative history of his novel (“invention” of the scrivener’s image) with the writer’s statements about Decembrism, which allows us to solve the following tasks: 1) to restore the main creative impulses of the writer; 2) to characterize the formation of his cognitive strategy, which covers the mythologized past and the tragic events of the Soviet era; 3) to clarify a number of definite functions of the “little man” that have not yet been noted by the interpreters of the novel; 4) to highlight the mission of the “little man” that reveals Okudzhava’s ethical principle. We consider the artist’s inconsistency in stylizing the thinking of the “little man” (the lead character and his psychological counterpart – the narrator) as a means of involving the contemporary reader in a dispute about the conflicts of the past inherited by the 20th century. We show the fundamental novelty of the embodiment of the Decembrist theme in the mirror of the perception of literary critics of the 1970s, who remained in the grip of the myth of the first Russian revolutionaries in its two varieties (official or alternative, cultivated by freethinkers), which interfered with the proper perception of the status of the “little man” next to a historic figure. Our task is to show that the merciful ethics of the artist, compassionate to the sufferer, soften Okudzhava’s civic intransigence towards the ideology of Pestel, whose state utopia became a Soviet reality; thus, we substantiate the regularity of the election of the “little man”, who himself needs indulgence, to the role of the spokesman for Pushkin’s commandment of “mercy to the fallen”. We trace the bold development in Okudzhava’s novel of the classical tradition of the “little man” experiencing his own drama of the “weak heart”. The echoes of Avrosimov’s fantasies about saving Pestel with Pushkin’s poem “Deep in Siberia’s mines...” are comprehended in the article as a sublimation of the author’s pain about the tragic fate of the Decembrists.

«…Не Шекспир главное, а примечания к нему»: комментарий академический и учебный, комментарий как автобиография, исследование и расследование

The paper deals with the history of academic commentary in the Soviet era, particularly the formation of standards for a description of the sources of the text, its creative history, and clarification of the encountered realities incomprehensible to the reader. A separate part of the paper is devoted to the critical editions of Russian “classics” designed for high school institutions, among them, e. g., the five-volume collection of works by A.S. Pushkin, issued by Lev I. Polivanov. The main specificity of these comments is that they precede the literary text and answer questions that students may have in advance. The next object of our analysis is N.L. Brodsky’s commentary on Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin,” intended for secondary school teachers. It became a subject of sharp criticism by V.V. Nabokov, like a commentary on the same novel released by Yu.M. Lotman. A new stage in the genre of commentary has become the Russian version of Nabokov’s “A Novel in Verse by Alexandr Pushkin,” growing into an autobiography and a self-discovery tool for the editor (Nabokov). We are also considering the question of how fair was Nabokov’s criticism of the commentaries of Brodsky and Chizhevsky. Another type of commentary should be that of Odessa researcher S.Z. Lushchik, published as an appendix to Kataev’s novel “Werther has already been written” (1980) and entitled “A real commentary on the novel.” This type of commentary grows into a full-fledged study that discovers unknown and carefully hidden details of the famous Soviet writer’s biography.

From “The Mystery of Tyutchev” to “Two Mysteries of Russian Poetry”: Creative history and textual key

From “The Mystery of Tyutchev” to “Two Mysteries of Russian Poetry”: Creative history and textual key

Decolonising the Humanities: Reimagining Black Intellectual Life and Personhood in Southern African Contexts

This review article explores possibilities for transdisciplinary entanglements between the disciplines of critical psychology and literary criticism through a reading of the volume, ʻFoundational African Writers’, edited by Bhekizizwe Peterson, Khwezi Mkhize and Makhosazana Xaba. In this article, ‘Foundational African Writers’ is approached as a distillation of Peterson’s investment in excavating the world-making activities, writing lives and activities of ordinary people as a central dimension of the project to decolonise the Humanities. As this edited volume attests, Peterson’s creative and critical oeuvre continues to provoke thinking about the ways in which the reading of the African literary archive can assist in the wider project of decolonising and re-imagining intellectual and creative history in the Global South while also providing opportunities for new modes of thinking about personhood and psychic life in contexts of precarity, intergenerational trauma and economic exclusion.

On the Creative History of the Solemn Sermons by Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky

On the Creative History of the Solemn Sermons by Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky

The Story “Childhoodˮ by Panteleimon Romanov: An Immersion into Creative History

The works of P.S. Romanov, who played a prominent role in the literary process in the 1920s, was forgotten for several decades after the writers death. It was not until the 2000s that researchers, attracted by Romanov primarily as a master of the satirical story, began to take a more active interest in his prose. Despite the existence of monographs on Romanov, his manuscripts were overlooked and no attention was paid to their study. This article on Romanovs story “Childhood” (1924) is based entirely on archival material and should partially fill this gap. The reference to a number of documents, including sketches, draft versions, plans, diaries, autobiographies, and diary entries, has made it possible to uncover some of the “secrets8j1; behind the creation of the story “Childhood”. This work represents only the first step towards a complete and exhaustive study of the history of the text. In the future, all the identified sources of the storys text are to be collected, described, clearly dated, and chronologically arranged.

The photographic heritage as a motivational resource to learn and teach history

This article, linked to the research of new methods for teaching history, has as its main objective to analyse the motivation of future primary school teachers regarding the use of photographic heritage in the teaching of historical content. This investigation is based on a teaching experience carried out in the 22/23 academic year with 266 primary education student teachers, in which a key episode in the history of Spain is explored via a series of photographs. Data collection was done through a Likert-type questionnaire, which the students answered after the activity, with a response scale of 1 to 4 with some qualitative open-ended questions. Responses were also examined using the SPSS27 statistical programme. The results show how the analysis and interpretation of the photographs, as well as the activities developed from them, are a motivating resource for most of the participants. The latter consider photographs suitable, on the one hand, for their personal development, and on the other, for their professional training, since it allows them to design innovative and creative history teaching-learning programmes.

Страницы истории создания кантаты П.И. Чайковского «Москва»: неизданная переписка композитора с П.А. Рихтером

The article for the first time publishes the correspondence of P. I. Tchaikovsky with the Chairman of the Coronation Commission P. A. Richter, connected with the history of the cantata Moscow. This work for soloists, choir, and orchestra to the text by A. N. Maikov was written by Tchaikovsky on the order of the Coronation Commission and was first performed on the day of the solemn coronation of Emperor Alexander III on May 15 (27), 1883. Richter’s letters and telegrams to Tchaikovsky are stored in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve in Klin, they have been mentioned in literature but have not been published. It was Richter who on March 4 (16), 1883 turned to the composer, who was then in Paris, with a request to compose a coronation cantata. Response letters and telegrams from Tchaikovsky to Richter, previously unknown, were discovered by the author of the article in 2022 in the Russian State Historical Archives (St. Petersburg). In total, ten archival documents are introduced into scientific circulation, including six unpublished texts by Tchaikovsky: four letters and two telegrams. The correspondence covers the period from March 4 (16) to April 17 (29), 1883. The published epistolary documents are provided with historical and textual-critical comments. The telegrams of both correspondents are presented in the French original and translated into Russian. Tchaikovsky’s correspondence with Richter and comments on it reveal the details of the history of the creation and first performance of the cantata Moscow, the pages of the history of its manuscript and new facts of the composer’s biography. The correspondence materials are a valuable source for restoring the creative history of the cantata as part of the preparation of a new critical edition of this work in Academic Complete Works of P. I. Tchaikovsky.

Semantic aspects of musical language

Music is a multifaceted phenomenon: it carries the mission of aesthetic education and enlightenment, performs therapeutic functions and is not only a source of information, but also the subject of filling human consciousness with a sense of joy, drama, and a high spiritual beginning. All the above is provided due to the many components that constitute the whole picture of musical art. These include intonation and rhythm, tempo and dynamics, timbre and texture, and more voluminous components: genre and form. Each of its elements represents a certain category, which, in turn, carries a semantic load or semantic aspect belonging to it. Having a centuries-old history of existence, music and, accordingly, its components have undergone considerable evolution. The purpose of the study is to show the semantic aspects of musical language as an integral system in their continuous dynamics of development, updating, and complication of content. The history of sound creativity is a vivid picture of styles and techniques of writing, images, and themes inherent in a particular era. The above is inextricably linked with the deep evolution of semantic aspects that convey the content and importance of all the leading categories of music. They represent, regardless of the period, an integral system of elements, the transformation of which is discussed in this article. The definition of the boundaries of "evolution" in relation to music, the disclosure of its action at various levels (the evolution of musical thinking, the evolution of national style, artistic area, the evolution of individual compositional style), the development of the theory of evolution in the field of functioning of musical phenomena – these and other problems are priorities for modern scientific musicology and art criticism. Realising the complexity and globality of the problem posed, the basis of which is the consideration of musical phenomena in the aspect of the theory of evolution, this article includes one of the possible approaches to solving this issue, involving the "general theory of systems" created in the 20th century. For that reason, this publication is relevant. It combines the most important theses of researchers investigating the problem of the semantics of the musical language in the context of such disciplines as pedagogy, quantum physics, medicine, social science. The study searches for the materials on the studied subject, their systematisation, and provides a panoramic display of the analysis of the semantic aspects of musical art. The author also shares the prospects of analysis of the mentioned phenomenon. The need for this research is conditioned by the essence of the subject, since it constantly changes, gets enriched with new qualities, actively responding to what is happening in real-time.

Басня В. А. Жуковского «Звезда и комета»: история текста и смыслы

The aim of the research is to identify the semantic component and artistic specificity of the images of celestial bodies in V. A. Zhukovsky’s poem “The Star and the Comet”. The paper is devoted to comparing Zhukovsky’s fable with a German source and considering the movement of poetic thought from the draft to the final version of the text; the mechanisms underlying the transformation of visible pictures of the universe into an artistic image with a high emotional impact are determined. The scientific novelty of the research consists in clarifying the factual basis of Zhukovsky’s writing of the fable “The Star and the Comet”, considering the creative history of the poem, interpreting it not only as a loose translation of the poetic study by Gottlieb Konrad Pfеffеl, but also as a result of superimposing the author’s own experimental observations of the movement of celestial bodies on the German source, which expands the understanding of cosmic imagery features in the aesthetics of Russian Romanticism. As a result of the research, the functional spectrum of the images of celestial bodies in Zhukovsky’s poem “The Star and the Comet” has been determined, the ratio of the national to the universal in these images has been revealed. Through textual and cultural-historical commentary, the mechanisms of poetic embodiment of the cosmos model as a fragment of the national worldview are traced, Zhukovsky’s handwritten materials are analyzed in relation to the intellectual realities of the 1820s.