Polemical Literature Research Articles

Women’s participation in Gnostic societies

The role of women in the ancient church community was quite high. Church fathers and apostles regularly mention women as laborers, patrons, and probably heads of congregations. At the same time, in polemical literature against heresies, one can regularly find reports that heretics, by whom the teachers of Gnosis are most often meant, also actively employ female representatives for certain purposes. With regard to Gnostic communities, however, assessments of women’s participation in certain activities are always negative. In this article a comparative analysis of the role of women in proto-orthodox Christian communities and Gnostic schools is carried out. Based on the sources, the author concludes that women’s participation in the proto-orthodox community and Gnostic schools, at least in the first two centuries of the birth of Christianity, resulted in a similar role in them, although there were some differences in the degree and scope of women’s involvement in religious life and cultic practice, as well as the functions they performed.

Detecting falsehoods: History and mafia in the work of Leonardo Sciascia and Sebastiano Vassalli

This article explores points of contact in the work of Leonardo Sciascia (1921–1989) and Sebastiano Vassalli (1941–2015) through historical novels with Sciascia's La strega e il capitano (1986) and Vassalli's La chimera (1990) as well as in their accounts of the mafia in Sciascia's Il giorno della civetta (1972) and Vassalli's Il cigno (1993). Deleuze's conception of falsehood as an essential structural element of crime fiction serves as a mechanism to highlight both authors’ intolerance of false histories and the deliberate obfuscation of the collusion between mafia and the State in Sicily and beyond. While the two writers were often ideologically aligned, Vassalli's narration of the mafia in Il cigno, and his subsequent criticism of Sicilian authors who had failed to ‘impugnare il bisturi’ and expose the true nature of the mafia, created a literary polemic. A debate ensued in the public domain, centering Sciascia in a discussion of positionality and questioning whether Vassalli had the authority to venture opinions on Sicilian matters. This controversy served to revive concerns about the role of literature in creating a coherent national identity or stoking regionalism, while simultaneously problematizing the role of the author as detective able to shed light on intractable problems.

Between history and literature: Mediation in the Political Languages of Indigenism in Peru (1919-1928)

Objective/context: The decade of the 1920s witnessed a significant transformation in Peruvian political culture with the widespread recognition of the indigenous problem as a socioeconomic phenomenon, which paved the way for new political languages. This article aims to recover the role of myth in the Peruvian indigenista debate during this period. Specifically, it delves into the literary polemic of indigenismo in 1927, focusing on how intellectuals from Lima, Cusco, and Puno bestowed their arguments with legitimacy, effectively intertwining literature and history through the incorporation of mythical elements. Methodology: The study proposes an examination of the arguments put forth by indigenista intellectuals using the tools of conceptual history, drawing heavily from Hans Blumenberg’s work on myth. This theoretical framework helps uncover the semantic foundations of Peruvian indigenist’s language and sheds light on the historical temporalities of their political projects. Originality: This article advances a novel analysis of the intellectual field by reinterpreting primary sources related to the 1927 indigenismo polemic, reconstructing synchronic languages on national identity, and highlighting the role of myth as a significant rhetorical device. By exploring how supporters of indigenismo creatively employed myth to imagine the past and mobilize politically, this study uncovers previously overlooked conceptual shifts and their mythical underpinnings. Conclusions: The study argues that myth played a crucial role in shaping the political language of a new generation of Peruvian intellectuals. Indigenismo facilitated the emergence of novel conceptual frameworks that interrogated national identity, accelerated expectations of change, and incorporated mythical elements from indigenous experiences, including rebellions in the south and the activities of the Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena Tahuantinsuyo. Concepts such as nation and socialism were democratized and imbued with mythical significance, reflecting the diverse temporalities within the indigenista movement.

From Silvio Pellico to Selahattin Demirtaş: Prison Literature and Literary Polemics in Turkey

ABSTRACT Selahattin Demirtaş’s fiction has led to some fierce discussions in the literary world in Turkey. The polemics were a reminder that prison literature, broadly defined, always was a hotly debated genre in the literary sphere of the late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. Indeed, the publication of a Turkish translation of a classic example of the genre—namely Silvio Pellico’s Le mie prigioni, translated by Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem in 1874—caused a vivid reaction by the Young Ottoman reformer Namık Kemal. This article looks at how the debate on the partial Turkish translation of Pellico’s memoirs that combined both aesthetic concerns and political sensitivities is not without similarities with debates about Demirtaş’s literary work. After a first part outlining varied responses to Demirtaş’s short stories and novels, the article analyses Namık Kemal’s “Mes prisons Muahazanamesi” (A Criticism of Mes prisons) and brings to the fore those aspects that were to become characteristic for future literary polemics. That Pellico’s first Ottoman Turkish critic should have been himself an author and activist who was repressed, incarcerated, and exiled for his political views and engagement, shows how essential prison literature was in the development of modern literature in Turkish.

ПЕРЕПИСЫВАНИЕ ЧЕХОВА В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ПРОЗЕ: ОПЫТ Д. В. ДРАГУНСКОГО

In modern literary studies, the topic "Chekhov's pretexts in Russian literature of the XX-XXI years" is one of the most popular. That is due to thesimplicity and the evidence of the material used. However, the analysis often stops at the stage of stating Chekhov's reminiscences, quotations, remakes of his plots, etc. However, we should not take at face value this constant presence of Chekhov in the consciousness of modern literature and the declared love for him, there is a constant internal controversy, the attitude towards Chekhov is love and irritation at the same time. It is impossible to understand that situation without referring to the history of Chekhov's reception, including the beginning of the twentieth century. The situation when a writer uses Chekhov in his literary polemic is analyzed using the example of D. V. Dragunsky's work. The writer's position is representative of the modern situation and helps to reveal the reasons why modern authors have a constant internal conversation with Chekhov.

Книги Достоевского в произведениях американской литературы XX века (Н. Уэст, Д. Ирвинг, Ф. Рот)

The article examines the presence of Dostoevsky’s books in the plot of the novels by Nathanael West, John Irving, and Philip Roth, in order to show how Dostoevsky was perceived by American writers and determined the specifics of the poetics and the transformation of constant motifs and images in modern American literature. It is proved that the use of Dostoevsky’s books as a stable motif introduces into these works an obligatory element of literary polemics for both the hero and the author. The main technique used by writers (parodying themes and images of Dostoevsky’s works) becomes the main way to rethink the existing tradition of perceiving the work of the Russian novelist.

The Young Kierkegaard as a Student of Liunge’s Kjøbenhavnsposten

Abstract Kierkegaard is well known for his quick wit and sharp polemics against his opponents. One of his favorite targets was the poet, dramatist, and philosopher, Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791 – 1860). Perhaps the best-known element of his critique was Heiberg’s outspoken Hegelian campaign. Before Kierkegaard’s famous criticisms of Heiberg, he learned the craft of literary polemics by reading the lively discussions in the Danish journals of the time. In this article it is argued that the role of the journal Kjøbenhavnsposten for Kierkegaard has never been appreciated. This journal was edited by Andreas Peter Liunge (1798 – 1879), who was a great adversary of Heiberg and his Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post. The article shows that the often satirical use of Hegel by Kjøbenhavnsposten to criticize Heiberg anticipates Kierkegaard’s strategy of critique with regard to Heiberg and other figures in the Danish Hegelian movement.

Islamic Historiography as Polemic Literature: Deconstructing Biographies of Medieval Jewish Converts

Abstract This article considers biographical material on Jewish converts authored by Muslim historians, primarily in Mamluk Egypt and Syria from the 13th to 15th centuries, enumerating and analyzing its recurring themes. Among its key findings is that the motifs found in this material are consonant with Islamic theological perceptions of other faith-based groups, especially the Jews. These themes also reflect their writers’ notion of exemplary history. Beyond this, I suggest that the main objective behind the texts under review is the affirmation of basic principles espoused in the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and the sīrah for the purpose of demonstrating the veracity and superiority of the Muslim faith.

КЊИЖЕВНА ПОЛЕМИКА У ДНЕВНОМ ЛИСТУ: СЛУЧАЈ РАДА ДРАИНЦА У ПРАВДИ

The subject of the paper is the analysis of specific genre features and (con)textual circumstances of the literary polemics between Ujević - Drainac - Ujević, conducted in the interwar period, mainly in the daily newspaper Pravda. Taking into account all the complexity of the case of this polemic (seriality, multiple intentionality; explicit and implicit poetics of serial polemics; the status of actors and audience; the circumstances of the daily newspaper and the Belgrade poetic bohemian circle, as well as Drainac’s overall poetics), we come to the conclusion of the multiple conditioned functionality of literary polemics, to which the specifics of the actor, topic and style contribute proportionately, but also the publication itself, whose choice, in the case of the serial polemic of the “ready” Drainac and the no less ready Ujević, is indicated by practical reasons and the desire for publicity.

From Ashʿarism to waḥda muṭlaqa in Andalusī Sufism: A Survey of Historical Sources on the Shūdhiyya

Abstract The Shūdhiyya is a Sufi strand that flourished in the south-east region of al-Andalus, particularly in the area of Murcia, in the late 6th/12th century until the second half of the 7th/13th century. It thus extended from the second half of the Almohad period to the early Naṣrid period. The Shūdhiyya is named after the enigmatic figure, al-Shūdhī (fl. 6th/12th c.), a Sufi saint linked to Tlemcen. Nevertheless, the two main figures of the Shūdhiyya were the theologians and Sufis, Ibn al-Marʾa (d. 611/1214) and Ibn Aḥlā (d. 645/1247). Faced with the advance of Christian forces in the region of Murcia, Shūdhīs relocated to the nascent kingdom of Granada and to the central Islamicate world where, as followers of Ibn Sabʿīn (d. 669/1270), they were known as the Sabʿīniyya. The Shūdhiyya flourished in al-Andalus at roughly the same time that Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) lived in al-Andalus. And, like Ibn ʿArabī, the Shūdhiyya ultimately came to be known for espousing the unity of existence although in a more radical, absolute way. Even though intellectual Sufism in al-Andalus is mostly associated with Ibn ʿArabī, his actual influence on his contemporaries in al-Andalus was rather scarce as he emigrated in his thirties to the East where he wrote his main works. However, in the field of intellectual Sufism, the Shūdhiyya was far more influential in al-Andalus than Ibn ʿArabī. Nevertheless, since the main representatives of the Andalusī Shūdhiyya did not relocate to the East, their works were not widely disseminated across the eastern and central Islamicate world and, consequently, except for Ibn al-Marʾa, most of their works are not known to be extant. Thus, the main witnesses are biographical and polemical literature. Despite the historical and intellectual relevance of the Shūdhiyya for the social, political and intellectual history of al-Andalus, only Massignon has devoted some attention to this Sufi strand. In this article the available sources on the Shūdhiyya in al-Andalus are surveyed and contextualized.

О знакомстве Д. Н. Блудова с Н. М. Карамзиным (по письмам к В. А. Жуковскому 1804 г.)

This article introduces the reader to the letters Dmitry N. Bludov wrote to Vasily A. Zhukovsky in 1804 and includes the publication of these letters with an accompanying commentary. The article reconsiders the history of Bludov’s acquaintance with Nikolay M. Karamzin and presents an important chronological revision regarding Bludov’s biography. His personal acquaintance with the man changed the attitude of the young Bludov towards Karamzin. Bludov’s letters reveal that his literary taste was in tune with the declarations of the members of the Friends Literary Society in Moscow, and initially his rejection of sentimentalism entailed a hostile attitude towards Karamzin as the head of this literary movement. Zhukovsky, however, dissuaded Bludov from engaging in literary polemics against sentimentalism and helped Bludov in making Karamzin’s acquaintance.

Eschatological Expectations in 1666: Eastern European Responses to Messages about the Coming of the Messiah

The anticipation of the end of the world in the second half of the 17th century became fertile ground for the perception of information about the coming of the messiah – Shabtai Zevi. Belief in him in the Jewish communities of Europe also encouraged Christians to lean towards ideas about the approaching end of times. Information about the Messiah is widely disseminated in journalism and polemical literature in both Western and Eastern Europe, attracting wary attention from the authorities. The treatise “The True Messiah” by Ioannikiy Galatovsky gained great popularity in Orthodox circles, the interest in which went beyond the 17th century. The treatise became a significant milestone in the development of Judeo-Christian relations in Eastern Europe.

Станіслав Росовецький: мовознавчий аспект наукової спадщини Володимира Перетца

The article analyzes the linguistic aspect of Volodymyr Peretz's researches based on the observations of Stanislav Rosovetskyi. Emphasis is placed on his conclusion about the existence of a solid baggage of in-depth studies of ancient Ukrainian poetry, polemical literature, and Ukrainian folklore even before V. Peretz's arrival in Kyiv. The urgency of the justification by this energetic organizer of Ukrainian science in 1906 in the local press of the importance of establishing departments of Ukrainian studies at the university: language, literature, history, ethnography and customary law is emphasized. S. Rosovetskyi's linguistic observations on V. Peretz's detailed review of the 1928 edition of Kateryna Hrushevska's Dumas are considered. Emphasis is placed on clarifying the position of P. Zhitetskyi and V. Perets regarding the problem of the origin of opinions. The selection of Church Slavonic elements that are not inherent in the living prose and song language by V. Peretz in P. Zhitetskyi's language of Dum is highlighted. Also, S. Rosovetsky emphasized the academician's identification of falsifications among the given corpus of authentic texts of opinions. Attention is focused on the experience of Stanislav Kazimirovych regarding the study of forgeries of oral poetic texts: their differentiation into "fakelore", "folklorism", "folksiness", and attempts to understand certain linguistic aspects of their functioning in Ukraine. In addition, he noted the conclusion of the academician about the impossibility of obtaining reliable results when applying "accurate" research methods as a result of insufficient sample size. The role of V. Peretz in starting the scientific model of Shevchenko studies is outlined, on the one hand in his own studios, and on the other hand, in the training of a galaxy of future Shevchenko scholars at the Seminary. S. Rosovetskiy emphasizes meaning of the "originator of the philological method" right down to the word. Separately, the scientist emphasized the importance for a philologist to work with primary sources and introduce new texts into scientific circulation. Emphasis is placed on the possibilities opened up thanks to the "Slavic formalism" invented by V. Perets in 1905, as proved by S. Rosovetskyi. Particular attention is paid to V. Peretz's thorough observations on "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", the linguistic aspects of the scientist's studies are emphasized.

Polemical Literature and Carnival Culture: Aspects of (not) an Intersection

Elements of culture of popular laughter (Mikhail Bakhtin) in the “Knyzhka” of the Ukrainian polemicist were the object of study in the works of Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Researchers have not yet distinguished between the concepts of humorous, ironic, and satirical. The third chapter of the “Knyzhka” is called by the Ukrainian historian the forerunner of Ukrainian comedy due to its humorous elements and simple language. However, Hrushevsky calls the descriptions of the image of a layman either ridicule or humor.Carnival elements are closely related to the nature of the genre. Polemical literature is mainly a synthesis of genres. Vyshensky’s texts were called syncretism (Igor Eremin) and the synthesis of genres (Petro Bilous). Bilous attributed most of the chapters of the “Knyzhka” to the genre of invective due to the dialogism and excessive expressiveness. According to Mikhail Bakhtin’s definition, a genre is representative of creative memory. Serio-comic genres, elements of which we explore in the “Knyzhka”, contain elements of carnival culture.In our opinion, such traces of carnival culture in the polemist’s texts include heterogeneous dialogic structures – “Socratic dialogue” and dialogue constructed on the type of catechism. And also these are methods of familiar everyday speech and vulgar common parlance (swearing, quarreling), active word-formation, considerable attention to the body, “grotesque realism” (according to Bakhtin’s definition). We trace in the “Knyzhka” the features of the ancient genres of diatribe (the genre of moral preaching) and mennipea. Similar techniques were used in medieval literature, for example in the works of Francois Rabelais.However, it is worth noting the complete difference between the goals set by the French writer and the Ukrainian polemicist. In Rabelais, artistic methods were aimed at restructuring the picture of the world, the liberation of the body. Instead, Vyshensky’s image of the body is no longer ambivalent, it belongs to a new canon, where the body has an individual character and is subject to church dogmas, and the connection with the universe is lost.Laughter’s elements in Vyshensky’s texts also lose its ambivalent character and become aspects of condemnation. Therefore, the archaic of seriously funny genres is preserved at the formal level, not at the semantic level.

Conversion and Polemic in the Late-Fifteenth Century Ottoman Empire: Two Polemical Treatises Against Judaism

Two Jewish converts to Islam in the service of Bayezid II penned the earliest known anti-Jewish polemicals in the Ottoman Empire. This article aims at exploring the historical context of the two epistles and their connection with Islamic polemical literature. The simultaneous appearances of Abd al-Salam’s Risāla al-hādiya and Abd al-Allam’s Risāla al-ilzām al-Yahūd will be discussed in the context of the Sephardic influx to the Ottoman lands, an encounter that stimulated scholarly interest in the Jewish faith among Ottoman intellectuals. At first glance, the two treatises seem to be structured so as to persuade a Jewish audience to embrace the Muslim faith by abandoning their former religion. However, the choice of Arabic instead of Hebrew, and the circulation of the texts primarily among Muslim readers suggest that ad- dressing the Jews appears to have been a rhetorical tactic. Considering the negative connotations attached to converts by the Ottoman elite, the authors might also have viewed the composition of anti-Jewish treatises as an effort to distance themselves from their Jewish past.

“Lessons from Northern Ireland” in Israeli Public Discourse: The Politics of Analogies in Conflicted Societies

The Northern Ireland 1998 Good Friday Agreement has generated a global industry of “lessons from Northern Ireland” to other conflict situations. While a lively polemical literature has been debating what exactly should these lessons be and whether they could be validly exported, this article adopts the prism of the “politics of comparison”: examining why and how certain actors appeal to analogies with other societies, and the causes and functions of such appeals. The article explores the case-study of the resonance of the Northern Ireland analogy in Israeli public discourse. It identifies and analyses four themes: the analogy with Northern Ireland is used as an argument for hope; as a source of peacemaking models; as self-justification, to deflect blame; and to legitimize narrow local interventions. The article contributes to literatures on the politics of comparisons, and political dynamics in the context of intractable conflicts.

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIAL LITERATURE XVI-XVII CENTURIES. AS THE BEGINNING OF UKRAINIAN PEDAGOGICAL JOURNALISM

The article deals with the religious polemic literature of the XVI-XVII centuries regarded as the beginning of the Ukrainian pedagogical publicize.

The Absence of the Jewish Usurer Trope in Andalusī Written Sources

ABSTRACT Starting in the twelfth century, usury became one of the immoral activities attributed to the Jews in Christian anti-Jewish propaganda. Jews became so commonly associated with usury in the Latin-Christian world that the word “Jew” itself became a synonym for “usurer”, mainly in the texts of Christian exegetes. However, although this trope spread geographically and over time, it does not seem to have existed in al-Andalus. In Islamic texts, while some examples associate ribā (usury) with Jews, it is equally attributed to Christians. Moreover, the practice of usury does not seem to have been used as an argument against the Jews in Muslim polemical literature. This article focuses on the Andalusī context, showing how the trope of the Jewish usurer did not take root in Muslim Iberia as it did among the Christians of the Peninsula. Of special interest are developments that took place in the Naṣrid kingdom, where several legal opinions (fatāwā) issued between the eighth/fourteenth and the ninth/fifteenth centuries reveal a concern among the population about loans at interest issued by Jews. The Naṣrid jurists, however, appear to have tolerated these interfaith activities.

Armenian-Jewish Connections in the Light of Pre-Modern Armenian Polemical Literature from Iran and Its Wider Context


 The reconstruction of Armenian-Jewish relations in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries is not an easy task due to the scarcity of historical material. Both peoples underwent resettlement, segregation, coercive conversions under Muslim rule (fighting the side-effects of religious policies for social disciplining), political agendas, the influx of Catholic missionaries, and interstate wars throughout the Safavid to Qajar periods. The current article attempts to revisit the perceptions about Jews and Armenians within inter-confessional debates by examining the early modern polemical literature from the Iranian Armenian context and by employing textual material from the Ottoman Armenian milieu that complements the Iranian case. It further aims to reveal the specifics of the Armenian-Jewish connections in the Persianate Muslim environment and detect the reasons for the ambiguous silence in the Armenian literature from the period in question.

Review: An Annotated Bibliography of Academic and Other Literature on Christian Science, by Shirley Paulson, Helen Mathis, and Linda Bargmann

At the urging of J. Gordon Melton, three researchers have produced a comprehensive bibliography on the history of Christian Science (CS) directed at scholars and academics. The bibliography includes a listing of books and articles in theology, biography, governance, feminism, healing, and other topics. Each individual entry comprises bibliographic information and a narrative ranging from about eighty to two hundred words that is not only descriptive but frequently analytical. A section on primary sources highlights CS periodicals, the Longyear Museum, and the Mary Baker Eddy Library, while three full-length articles conclude the volume in order “to demonstrate the range, depth, and diversity of the works represented in the Annotated Bibliography” (294).The first section locates CS within the context of Christianity, although its debt to New Thought, Western Esotericism, and metaphysical religion is chronicled as well. Not surprisingly, authors and articles published in Nova Religio appear in this section and are, indeed, peppered throughout the volume. But there are surprises as well, such as David Porter’s book on Willa Cather that details the unconscious debt to Eddy that Cather exhibits in her writings. The section on Independent Christian Scientists also offers an unusual perspective by presenting the voices of those who had severed ties with CS, though not with some of its teachings. This section differs from that on polemic literature, which lists blatantly oppositional works, such as Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults, although Mark Twain’s savage account of CS appears in a different section. The role that CS has played in determining boundaries for the separation of church and state is addressed in the section on healing.This bibliography will be extremely helpful to those researching Christian Science, New Thought, or church-state relations, to list just a few topics. The authors plan to provide updates and new material through an online version.