Russian Classics Research Articles

REVOLUTION OF THE 1917 IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA

The article contains the comparison between the perceptions of the revolutionary events of the 1917 which were reflected in the diaries and journalistic works by the prominent Russian writers and thinkers: Nicolai Berdyaev, Alexander Blok, Sergei Bulgakov, Ivan Bunin, Zinaida Gippius, MaximGorky, Youri Gauthier, Mikhail Prishvin, Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov, Semyon Lyudvigovich Frank and others. The author reveals some key themes in their works which were written in the 19171918: recognition of the irreversibility of the revolutionary changes; disappointment with the former visions and beliefs in the people and the intelligentsia; the crisis of the humanistic values. She argues that the representatives of the Russian intelligentsia searched solutions of the urgent problems in the classic Russian literature and the works of historians; literature and history proved to be the only milestone in the midst of the crisis of values.

A Médea és gyermekei az orosz irodalmi hagyomány tükrében

The article approaches Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s Medea and Her Children from the Ancient Greek myth of Medea. The argument starts from the fact that despite the novel’s title, the text shows significant deviation from the story of the original myth. Likewise, the possible reasons for the remarkable differences between the Ancient Greek Medea figure and Ulitskaya’s eponymous heroine is the subject of investigation. It is argued that the differences are due to Ulitskaya’s distinct reliance on classical Russian literature besides the myth in creating her protagonist. The writer establishes intertextual links between her own novel and some outstanding works of Russian literature. As a result of such reminiscences and allusions, Ulitskaya’s heroine represents the moral values and an attitude to life much more typical of classical Russian literature than Antiquity. The article’s author concludes by highlighting that the success of Ulitskaya’s novels can be attributed to the writer’s excellence in combining postmodern literary techniques with the principles of “new realism” – a tendency that follows classical Russian literary traditions.

CULTURAL POLICY OF THE USSR IN THE POSTWAR DECADE (THEATRES IN THE SOUTHERN URALS) Anna

The article examines the influence of ideological resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks (On the repertoire of drama theatres and measures for its improvement, About the Opera Great Friendship by V. Muradeli), as well as the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR On the reduction of public subsidies to theaters and measures for improving their financial activities on the theatres of the South Urals (Chelyabinsk, Kurgan and Chkalov areas) in the postwar years. Methods of comparative and statistical analysis used in the study showed that these documents played an important role in changing the repertoire policy, and led to the reduction in the number of theatres in the South Ural region. As a result, theatrical productions in the area in question became focused on patriotic education, the importance of development of Communist society and the formation of a special attitude towards the head of state. This ideological policy led to an increase in the repertoire of the number of works of modern Soviet drama, and a significant reduction in the number of productions based on classic Russian and foreign drama. The result was a loss of interest in theatrical productions and a decrease in the number of audience of drama and musical comedy theatres in the region. The death of Stalin followed by the party and state reorganization brought about positive changes in the functioning of the regional theatres. For example, the Chkalov drama theater demonstrated its new repertoire in the region as well as in the capital during tours.

DISTRIBUTION OF EDITIONS OF RUSSIAN LITURATURE IN VIETNAM

The review of the article presents a panorama of the "entry" of Russian writers into Vietnamese literature from the very beginning and throughout the whole century. The attitude of Vietnamese writers, translators, and publishers to the work of Russian classics is vividly illustrated. There is also information about how the work of Chekhov, Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky influenced Vietnamese literature. The collection of translations of the works of the great classics into separate volumes and the appearance of works reflecting the negative attitude of the common people towards the aristocracy. The work also considers the perception of Russian literature and the creative assimilation of its achievements. The perception of Russian literature, one of the largest national literatures, and creative development of its achievements had allowed the Vietnamese culture to enter into the context of European civilization. The formation of modern literature and the type of simultaneous development of one's own culture are the features of the Vietnamese culture of modern times. Thus, under the establishment of the modern literature refers to the formation of a separate genre forms not previously unparalleled in Vietnamese literature. This, for example, the major works of the epic form, until the occurrence of a significant event described in the form of stories.

Зооморфные и фитоморфные образы в сказках А. С. Пушкина и их переводах на китайский язык

The results of a comparative analysis of zoomorphic and phytomorphic images reflected in the metaphors and comparisons in A. S. Pushkin’s fairy tales and their modern translations into Chinese language, made by Tsun Yuy and Ma Sinshuy are presented. The relevance of the study of creativity of A. S. Pushkin in the aspect of translation of his works into Chinese is determined by the interest of the Chinese reader to the works of Russian classics; the significance of the fairy tale as a genre, reflecting the people’s view of the world; the attention of modern linguistics to the issues of worldview and the characteristics of idiostyle of the author. The novelty of the work is determined by appeal to the new, not yet subjected to the philological study translations of Pushkin’s fairy tales. Specifics of translation of comparative tropes in fairy tales of the poet are revealed in the light of “the cultural meanings” inherent in the images of animals and plants in views of the Russian and Chinese peoples. Zoomorphisms and phythomorphisms in accordance with the degree of equivalence of the relevant images in the views of Russian and Chinese people fall into three categories: fully equivalent, partially equivalent and non-equivalent. It is noted that the material is grouped mainly in the areas of fully and partially equivalent ratios that is explained by the known similarity of a number of images of animals and plants in two cultures. The cases of unequal ratios of the images are commented. The predominance of zoomorphic images on phytomorphic ones are emphasized and explained. The features of the transmission by the translators of the content of zoomorphic and phytomorphic Pushkin’s images for their adequate perception of Chinese readers are discussed.

Narrabat — прототип сервиса для пересказа новостей в формате стихотворений

Nowadays, news portals are forced to seek new methods of engaging the audience due to the increasing competition in today’s mass media. The growth in the loyalty of news service consumers may further a rise of popularity and, as a result, additional advertising revenue. Therefore, we propose the tool that is intended for stylish presenting of facts from a news feed. Its outputs are little poems that contain key facts from different news sources, based on the texts of Russian classics. The main idea of our algorithm is to use a collection of classical literature or poetry as a dictionary of style. The facts are extracted from news texts through Tomita Parser and then presented in the form similar to a sample from the collection. During our work, we tested several approaches for text generating, such as machine learning (including neural networks) and template-base method. The last method gave us the best performance, while the texts generated by the neural network are still needed to be improved. In this article, we present the current state of Narrabat, a prototype system rephrasing news we are currently working on, give examples of generated poems, and discuss some ideas for future performance improvement.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF POETRY (the use of semantic differentials in sociopoetics)

In sociology, literature, along with the study of the content of works of art and social characteristics of characters it is important to study the creative process. Here is an attempt to look at the poetry writing and its results through the prism of the behavioral approach on the basis of the poetry content analysis. Creation of the poem is considered as a behavioral creative process of self-actualization of creative potential, interactions of the system of requirements and social situations verbally expressed by means of language. During the framing actualized thoughts and feelings of the poet translated into poetic form. The main hypothesis is that the emotional dissonance express itself poetically. Semantic differential (SD) technique provides a clue to the text. Content analysis of poems (cycles, books) of separate poets through SD method could provide the understanding of similarities and differences of successive stages of the creating creative process of the same master, or explain the dissimilarity of poets compared to each other. The analysis of separate poems of Blok, Gumilev, Yesenin, Akhmatova ect. may demonstrate style features, the individual originality of each poets considered in terms of the dialectic opposition. The article discusses the possibilities of the SD method and the antonyms scales search in the author’s text in the study of the creative process, based on the characteristics of the poetry of classical Russian poet Alexander Blok.

Интертекстуальность и игровые технологии в экранизациях нового времени

Статья посвящена важному аспекту современной эстетики – интертекстуальности, которая обсуждается на примере экранизации классики. Экранизация рассматривается в русле научного осмысления литературоведением «перевода» вербального текста в аудиовизуальный ряд. В контексте авангардных поисков современного кинематографа как синтеза искусств интерпретируются приемы интертекстуальности и игровых технологий.

Influence of N. Gogol’s and M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Satire on Michail Bulgakov’s Prose

The article is concerned with the study of literary relationships between the satire of the famous 20th-century Russian writer M. Bulgakov and the works by the Russian classics of the 19th century – N.V. Gogol and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The article describes Gogol’s and Saltykov-Shchedrin’s influence on Bulgakov’s satirical poetics, especially in the period of his development as a writer. Special attention is given to the device of grotesque and the motives of mechanicalness and lifelessness, forming the artistic worlds of the writers under study. The authors note that the technical progress and the rapid development of mechanized production in the 20th century, combined with the satirical motive of primitivism, characteristic of Russian literature, left an imprint on the nature of Bulgakov’s grotesque. The writers at issue are united by such common feature of the satirical poetics as turning to fantasy, hyperbole, ‘strange and queer things’. The article shows the way Bulgakov perceived and embodied the principles of Gogol’s and Shchedrin’s world perception through the comic mixing of absurd, ghostly and real. Bulgakov’s way of seeing the world is characterized as ‘delirious reality’. At the same time, Bulgakov, as well as his literary teachers in the sphere of satire, showed oddness and divergence as regularity, while the comicality of fantasy in his works finally turns into the drama of reality.Keywords: satire, laughter, grotesque, mysticism, fantasy, zoomorphic metaphors

Capital cities and state borders: Spatial relationships and shifts

The aim of the article is to verify the opinions of classic Russian geographers on the geographical positions of capital cities and the commonality of their historical destiny. The remoteness of 178 official and 45 alternative capitals from the outer contours of their countries has been measured. Their relation to the “reduced radius” (RR) of national territories has been calculated. The distributions of indicators and their dependence on the closest border, either terrestrial or maritime, have been analyzed. The results are shown on maps. The remoteness proved quite small on average (70 km, or 20% of the RR), especially the remoteness of informal capitals gravitating to the sea (20 km, or 6% of the RR). Particular cases of the closeness of capitals to borders are considered. A number of examples demonstrate that the areas of the historical migration of capitals are more often than not triangular in form and also small compared to modern countries. The migration of Russian capital cities is highlighted in the greatest detail. The thesis about the commonality of the destinies of capitals and countries with their borders, just like the thesis about the gravitation of capital cities to the interiors of countries, is only partially true. They are interrelated but not identical. At the same time, capital city and border are key, mutually complementary, and even somewhat similar spatial attributes of the state.

«Ода благодарности» А. П. Сумарокова: поэтическое новаторство в масонском тексте XVIII в.

The present paper analyzes the poem Ode to Gratitude by the famous Russian 18th-century poet A. P. Sumarokov, not yet studied by literary scholars. The analysis shows that Sumarokov, as the founder of Russian classicism, mixed elements of various genres and specific to different literary traditions in some of his poems, thus he can be called a forerunner to 19th-century lyrics. Sumarokov’s stylistic innovations were facilitated by the necessity to encrypt Freemasonic ideas in a spiritual ode.

Наследие русской классики в литературоведческих трудах доктора Богданова (Украина)

Наследие русской классики в литературоведческих трудах доктора Богданова (Украина)

Sergei Dovlatov’s Ludic Literary Discourse in the Original and in English Translations

Russian emigre authors created numerous postmodern ways of mediating Russian classics into contemporary fiction. Many scholars discussed Vladimir Nabokov's role in this phenomenon, while such third wave writers as Andrey Sinyavsky/Abram Terz, Vasiliy Aksenov, Sergei Dovlatov continued and developed this tradition. The paper discusses Dovlatov's ludic literary references in the original and shows how his three translators, Ann Frydman, Antonina W. Bouis, and Ekaterina Dovlatova, rendered them into English. While Sinyavsky's books already found direct response in American fiction, resonance to Dovlatov's stories is likely to occur in Anglophone Russian American literature, thanks to (re)translations and other popularizing projects.

Russian Classical Military Literature in the System of Moral and Psychological Support of Forces

Russian Classical Military Literature in the System of Moral and Psychological Support of Forces

Архетипы духовного движения в русской историософии

Sorokina Tatyana Evgenievna The article considers the main principles of Russian philosophy of history. The most discussed historiosophical idea, going through a variety of transformations, remains Slavyanofil doctrine of special destiny of Russia, its spiritual integrity. The author focuses on the fact that preserving «national archetype» as a key issue, Russian historiosophy offered various options related to the West as a symbol of a different worldview. Mindful of the global fascination with Buddhist understanding of human destiny and history of the world, it must be said that the Russian historiosophy presumed itself in opposition to the Buddhist concept of the historiosophical. Briefly it is explained the reasons for the occurrence of classical Russian literature historiosophical space. 1. The national literature was perceived by Russian thinkers as the «second history». 2. Figures of historical discourse were five Russian classics: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. 3. The fate and the works of Russian writers of the inherent rationale of national historical path in its different variants. 4. The Russian philosophy of history, to show interest in religious issues, examines the life and work of every writer as a definite spiritual model of public importance and is being implemented in the historical world. It is commented on historico-philosophical concept of Leontiev and Fedorov, Rozanov and Solovyov who emphasize that eschatology is the semantic core of Russian philosophy of history. Key words : Russian historical philosophy, national archetype, historiosophical concept, Slavophile doctrine, Buddhism, eschatology.

«Уральский звукоряд» поэзии Александра Вавилова

The article deals with the current situation in Ural poetry, characterizing the main generations of poets that make up its characterological specific features. The author describes the aesthetic complex, which, according to the categories of place and time, defines the main features of Ural poetry, i.e. quite often concealed but still present sociality, the absence of inferiority complex resulting from the poets’ not coming from the capital, which is due to the fact that they are aware of the existence of Sverdlovsk / Yekaterinburg on the poetic map as a newly perceived place; the influence of “university” poetry. Hence, on the one hand, its social acuteness, certain gaucherie and rigidity, always “flavoured” with literariness, philological and poetical competence. On the other hand, open intertextuality has little in common with poetry writing in the postmodern sense, but it is very much like Boris Pasternak’s poets’ voices calling to each other from an “aerial pathway” . The writing of Alexander Vavilov, a representative of the youngest generation of poets, is studied in the vast social-cultural context on the one hand, and on the other, — in the frame of his individual poetic world. The article shows that his poetic world is a paradoxical integrity of realist and art nouveau poetry, even having features of an avant-garde and absurdist character. Appeal to different poetic movements is typical of his poetry: the poetry of the Sixtiers (both Russian and Ural schools), Ural and Saint Petersburg rock-poetry, chanson by Vl. Novikov, Russian classics, Russian modernism, and the avant-garde of the 20 th century, especially the conceptualists and ironicists of the 1990s. Vavilov easily joins the poetic tradition of Boris Ryzhy with Ural rock. The author concludes that A. Vavilov’s writing provides an outstanding result for Ural poetry. In it, the harsh working style and aggressive worldview coexist with bare lyricism and a straightforward talk to destiny.

STYLES AND TYPES OF RETHINKING IN RUSSIAN POETIC METAPHOR

In the science of metaphor is used a number of approaches to the study of metaphors. The first is based on identifying the major semantic groups (spheres, fields, clusters). The starting point of such a study can become, first, the preferences of the poet in relation to the different metaphors, and second – the frequency of their use. The second is based on the analysis of the metaphors: the method of education used the stylistic techniques, the type of rethinking (lexical and semantic description of tropes closely related to the aesthetic function to metaphor), morphological component. Thus analyzing the author's language, the researcher penetrates into the artistic world, which corresponds to the units represented by R.O. Jacobson: «Doing linguistics is required for all the possible problems the relationship between and speech universe», so R.O. Jakobson speaks about a between the word and the world [Jacobson: 1975, p. 220]. In fiction the connection of the “unconnectable” leads to secondary figurative semantic word matching as a way of realization of the crucial function of language - it’s aesthetic function. As one of the many stylistic techniques I. Selvinsky uses, such as citation classics (straight or skewed). In the context of a work role of this metaphor – the relationship of the poetic essay with the Russian classics, as well as underlining the tragedy of the situation when nothing is firm, when the danger may appear suddenly, when suddenly you may require courage and other human qualities active. The author suggests that the feeling of danger forces to mobilize, does not allow relaxing. The idea of human activity, the necessity of his actions permeated the entire volume of the poetic essay.

On the Teaching of Classical Literature

The heart has its own order; the intellect has its own, which is by principle and demonstration. The heart has another. We do not that we ought to be loved by enumerating in order the of love; that would be ridiculous. PASCAL, PENSEES, #283 (MODERN LIBRARY) It is really quite remarkable what happens when reading a great novel: By identifying with a character, you learn from within what it feels like to be someone else. The great realist novelists, from Jane Austen on, developed a technique for letting readers eavesdrop on the very process of a character's thought and feelings as they are experienced. Readers watch heroes and heroines in their never-ending process of justifying themselves, deceiving themselves, arguing with themselves. That is something you cannot watch in real life, where we see others only from the outside and have to infer their inner status from their behavior. GARY SAUL MORSON, COMMENTARY, 2015 (1) I. Not a few critics have remarked that if someone wants to study history or literature, the best places to avoid in the universities are the history and English departments. Though universities, as we know them, were founded in the Middle Ages to sort out and know the truth, many in our time find this, to recall Pascal's words, a ridiculous assumption. Pascal also hinted that we could approach this same truth in two ways, one through the intellect and one through the heart. The methods were not the same. We do not prove that we are loveable by listing the causes of love. But we may just find that we are loveable if someone loves us for no reason apparent to us. In great part, literature is a record of men and women who have discovered this fact that they are loved, though it always surprises them. In a like manner, literature is an account of those who have made themselves unlovable even in the eyes of those who continue to love them. The least bad thing we could say of a person who listed the ten best reasons why he was lovable to others would be that he was hopelessly vain, if not sinfully prideful. In quite a fine essay, Gary Saul Morson at Northwestern University recounted his experience as a professor of Russian literature. (2) Students at that university, it turns out, contrary to the statistics, do show interest in literature once they actually read a classic novel or two. Most people know that few more gripping pieces of literature exist than classic Russian novels. Such novels Morson, for many years, has had the good fortune to teach to hundreds and hundreds of students. He sets out to examine the reasons why most students, in most universities, however, do not seem to find the reading of literature the riveting experience that Morson knows it to be. In today's universities, students are often taught to begin specialization and research right from the beginning. They have to choose their major and minor quickly to fulfill requirements. Before they have a chance to look at everything, they are busy looking at some tiny thing. I have no doubt that, with enough insight and time bordering on eternity, anyone can get to everything from some existing thing. Conversely, with a little reason, most people can get to something from universal ideas. The question here is: How do students discover these literary works with so many conflicting demands on their time and so many competing estimates about what is important? In one way, the answer is easy. Each of us just has to sit down and read them. Quite often, the first paragraph of a story incites us to follow it to the end. It takes a cold heart not to be moved by War and Peace or The Possessed, provided, that is, that one is reading the novel itself, not a summary of it and certainly not a theory about its structure or an analysis of the conditions of the time and place that purport to explain it in sociological or psychological terms. But who, these days, has the courage--I use Socrates's term--to read an eight-hundred page tome that few of one's friends have ever heard of? …

Self-Identifications with Characters of Russian Classics in Philip Roth’s Academic Trilogy

Self-Identifications with Characters of Russian Classics in Philip Roth’s Academic Trilogy

Роман П. А. Храмова «Инок» в контексте региональной и русской классической литературы

Роман П. А. Храмова «Инок» в контексте региональной и русской классической литературы