Russian Classics Research Articles

Памяти Веры Николаевны Аношкиной (Касаткиной)

This obituary is dedicated to the talented scientist, researcher of Russian classical literature and experienced teacher Vera Nikolaevna Anoshkina (1929–2023). The authors of the obituary list brief information about the life and academic work of V. N. Anoshkina, talk about the place of her work, her friendship with colleagues from IWL RAS, and their joint activities. The presented text indicates circle of Anoshkina’s scientific interests, especially her increased interest in the axiological sphere of Russian classics, and reports about her pedagogical talent, inexhaustible strength and thirst for an active life. The obituary is accompanied by an excerpt from Anoshkina’s book about the life and work of V. A. Zhukovsky.

Иван Гончаров и Лев Толстой: человечность в русской классике как философская проблема

The article develops an approach to the philosophical interpretation of the works of Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy. The analysis of a literary text is un­dertaken as an effort to understand humanity, as a reflection in the context of philosophical anthropology: what is humanity? Is it possible to preserve it? The tragic experience of the 20th century has set many thinkers and writers against the myths about humanity, which Goncharov and Tolstoy were accused of creating, and put almost any discussion about it on the verge of posturing and cynicism. However, the very ability of a person to question the humanity and seek it, the ability to protest against his demythologized reality, suggests that a person is not equal to his circumstances, that his reality is not ex­hausted by empiricism. With a myth, he expresses and defends his humanity. The works of Goncharov and Tolstoy are interpreted in the article as myth-making, protecting humanity. Special attention is paid to mythological fantasy and the problem of the reality of myth-making, it is proved that the myth is not a fiction, but an autonomous reality. Humanity is understood as the meeting of everyday life and myth in this sense of the word, the living of an empirical life in association with the mythological reality of Goncharov and Tolstoy. Thus, the appeal to the myth-making of Russian classics becomes an aid to such philosophical anthropology and such humanism that would not ignore the tragedies of the century as something already past, but would not refuse to talk about humanity (hoping to preserve it only in mournful silence). The re­ality of the myth of humanity is created in spite of the inhuman reality: in this creativity and thanks to it, a person finds himself.

Basic Reporting Verbs as Markers of the Author’s Idiostlyle

This article reveals the peculiarities of idiostyles referring to works by nineteenth-century classical Russian writers (F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, and I. S. Turgenev). Based on intertext and inter-style statistical comparison, the author aims to reveal lexical compatibility and some individual particularities of using some frequent reporting verbs in literary texts belonging to the same period. The research is methodologically based on the ideographic approach to literary text analysis which takes into consideration internal correlations existing between lexical paradigmatics and syntagmatics. Lexical bigrams (pairs of words used in one phrase context) are taken as a unit of comparative lexicostatistical and contextological analysis. Word combinations of this type are used by the same writer in different texts, though they are not found in works by the other authors. The only obligatory element of a lexical bigram is a word which is often used by all the writers in question as it reveals the specific patterns of an author’s work with the same language material (such reporting verbs as сказать (‘say’), спросить (‘ask’), ответить (‘answer’), заметить (‘note’) are very representative for this purpose). So-called “idiostylistic markers” most frequently used to describe the moment of speech are identified for each writer in question. The author draws conclusions about the individual specificity of these stylistic patterns. Author-specific lexical compatibility shows that in the contexts of the verbs in question with lexical bigrams extracted from novels by L. N. Tolstoy, the use of the verb отвечать (‘answer’) prevails and involves an expression of emotions. The verb замечать (‘note’) which is frequently used in novels by F. M. Dostoevsky, reveals psychological perceptional particularities of speech of the other. The author argues that the use of the verb говорить (‘say’) for introducing direct speech is typical of А. P. Chekhov’s idiostyle where it is syntactically combined with adverbial participles denoting various nonspeech actions drawing the reader’s attention to a particular detail. The verb промолвить (‘utter’) is specific for I. S. Turgenev’s idiostyle and reveals implicit but semantically important correlations existing between the concepts of speech, thought, and motion.

Трансформация сюжета трагедии А.С. Пушкина «Моцарт и Сальери» в повести Н. Дашевской «День числа Пи»

The ways of reflecting classical texts in modern literature on the example of the story “Pi Day” by N. Dashevskaya addressed for teenage readers are considered. It is shown how the creation is formed on the allusion to the tragedy “Mozart and Salieri” by A.S. Pushkin. The specificity of a new type of hero, developed in the context of traditions, taking into account the ideas about modern teenager personality is revealed. The correlation of the plot about Mozart and Salieri with the literary hero of the new time is described. In the main antagonists’ images of N. Dashevskaya’s story – Lev Inozemtsev and Kirill Komlev – the positive and negative features combination is emphasized. The methods of gifted teenager image formation in the creation are characterized, the artistic embodiment specificity of his socialization, adaptation way in the school community is determined. Differences number of the modern author’s book from the classical creation are highlighted, the writer’s desire to form in young readers the need to have a look at the source material is emphasized. The compositional features of the story “Pi Day” are defined: division into two equal parts, narration on behalf of different characters, fragmentary day-night narration. The practical significance of the research, the results using possibility in literature school teaching as a way of increasing the high school students reading interest to the classic Russian literature is outlined.

«Детство» Л. Н. Толстого в романе Марины Степновой «Сад»

Our article is devoted to the analysis of Marina Stepnova’s novel “The Garden” from the point of view of the intertextual embodiment of the theme of childhood in it. Marina Stepnova’s text is structured in such a way that it suggests reading it precisely from the point of view of intertext: the author weaves recognizable quotes from various works into the narrative, which are considered as allusions referring to the works of classical Russian and foreign literature. We consider Stepnova’s novel as a reflection in it of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Childhood”, which is present not in the form of an explicit citation or direct reference, like many other works, but as a “third text”, interpreters. This allows to follow the implementation of some motifs characteristic of the embodiment of children’s themes in Russian literature, for example, The Garden of Eden motif, the motif of the estate and others. In addition, this approach allows us to compare individual fragments of the story of the 19th century and the novel of the 21st century, trace the coinciding elements in these episodes and come to the conclusion that the fantastic garden of the Boryatinskys in the novel seems to “grow” out of the history of the formation of Nikolen’ka Irtenev. Separately, we dwell on the theme of muteness, silence, the ability and impossibility of expressing oneself in words, which occupies a significant place in the work under consideration. Marina Stepnova’s novel “The Garden” becomes a kind of parody of a parenting novel, it contains many themes and motives characteristic of the Bildungsroman genre, but they are all distorted, pastishized. At the same time, the novel lacks an important element characteristic of this genre – a description of the manifestation of the children’s consciousness of the main character, the theme of children’s perception is realized through the people around her, other heroes of Marina Stepnova’s novel, since numerous appeals to the topic of childhood are associated with them. As a result, we come to the conclusion that the image of the main character turns into a force that controls all other heroes, reflects and replaces the figure of the author.

ЛИРИЧЕСКИЙ ГЕРОЙ В РОК-ПОЭЗИИ

An issue of the subject in contemporary lyrics is widely discussed at the present time, being one of the most relevant in the research of contemporary poetry. One of the issues is the relevance of the term lyrical hero in relation to contemporary poetry, which, following the analyticism path, departs from the actual lyrical utterance. The article expresses an opinion that the idea of a lyrical hero remains relevant in the study of song poetry, in particular rock poetry of the 1980s – 1990s. Based on the classic article by Yu.N. Tynyanov «Block», in which an attempt is made for the first time to qualify the definition under discussion, the article analyzes the work of Russian rock poets, proves the presence of the lyrical hero in the lyrics of K. Kinchev and Yu. Shevchuk. Also, the conclusion is made about the lyrical hero specifics in classical Russian rock poetry. It is connected not only with intratext factors, such as the presence of the self-subject, the possibility for a rock poet of constructing a single plot of the hypertext, which includes biographical motives, but also extratext factors of the existence of a synthetic rock text, including the presence of the image of a lyrical hero in the socio-cultural sphere, the creation of a media image, the formation of a stage image.

Религиозная тема в кантатно-ораториальном творчестве Виктора Ульянича

The work of Viktor Ulyanich is multifaceted and varied. A special place in the composer's work is occupied by cantata-oratorio works. The article is devoted to the religious theme in Viktor Ulyanich's choral works, revealing their figurative and thematic content, genre and stylistic features. Victor Ulyanich in his works refers to the poetic work of Russian classics - A.S. Pushkin, M.I. Lermontov, F.I. Tyutcheva, A.S. Khomyakova, Ya.P. Polonsky, uses folklore and Church Slavonic liturgical texts. In his works, the composer touches on eternal themes, he mainly refers to religious and lyric-philosophical poems about self-knowledge, about the creation of space and nature, about divine destiny. As a material for the analysis, the cantata "Guiding Ligthouse" the lyrics by Archimandrite Vitaly (Sidorenko) was used. Works for the choir a capella - "Two choirs to the lyrics by F. Tyutchev", "Choral diptych" to the lyrics by V. Lazarev and "Three spiritual chants" to the canonical texts.General conclusion: The religious theme in the work of Viktor Ulyanich acquires a new, individual sound. The composer's innovative musical language is closely connected with the traditions of choral writing and incorporates the characteristic features of the spiritual works of Russian composers of the 19th-20th centuries.

Book concept in Dystopia: to the Question of Genre Determination

Artistic conceptology is one of the promising directions in modern stylistics of artistic speech. It is concerned with the specifics of concepts verbalization in literary texts as components of the author's linguistic world picture. This article raises the issue of generic specifics of the book concept determined by the type of the literary text. The authors reveal the peculiar features of the concept under study in the framework of dystopia that can be considered as typical for the genre. The findings of the paper are based on the study of the most representative, suggestive texts of classical Russian and English dystopias, such as 1984 by George Orwell, BraveNew World by Aldous Huxley, We by Y. Zamyatin, The Slynx by T. Tolstaya. The main features of this concept are identified; a conclusion is made about the discursive and genre conditionality of their implementation.

Digital Authorship Attribution in Russian-Language Fanfiction and Classical Literature

This article is the third paper in a series aimed at the establishment of the authorship of Russian-language texts. This paper considers methods for determining the authorship of classical Russian literary texts, as well as fanfiction texts. The process of determining the author was first considered in the classical version of classification experiments using a closed set of authors, and experiments were also completed for a complicated modification of the problem using an open set of authors. The use of methods to identify the author of the text is justified by the conclusions about the effectiveness of the fastText and Support Vector Machine (SVM) methods with the selection of informative features discussed in our past studies. In the case of open attribution, the proposed methods are based on the author’s combination of fastText and One-Class SVM as well as statistical estimates of a vector’s similarity measures. The feature selection algorithm for a closed set of authors is chosen based on a comparison of five different selection methods, including the previously considered genetic algorithm as a baseline. The regularization-based algorithm (RbFS) was found to be the most efficient method, while methods based on a complete enumeration (FFS and SFS) are found to be ineffective for any set of authors. The accuracy of the RbFS and SVM methods in the case of classical literary texts averaged 83%, which outperforms other selection methods by 3 to 10% for an identical number of features, and the average accuracy of fastText was 84%. For the open attribution in cross-topic classification, the average accuracy of the method based on the combination of One-Class SVM with RbFS and fastText was 85%, and for in-group classification, it was 75 to 78%, depending on the group, which is the best result among the open attribution methods considered.

CREATIVE ACTIVITY OF A.V. SERGEYEVA-ZINKINA

The relevance of the topic touched upon in the article is due to the need to preserve the national musical heritage of the Chuvash Republic as part of the Russian Federation, to perpetuate a brief study of the creative activity of the Honored Artist of Russia, People’s Artist of Chuvashia Alevtina Vasilyevna Sergeeva-Zinkina in the history of the vocal art of Chuvashia and Russia. A.V. Zinkina is one of the most talented singers in the history of professional vocal art of Chuvashia, the owner of a dramatic soprano voice rare in strength and beauty, a graduate of Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. The aim of the work was to systematize versatile information about the creative path of the opera singer. The article provides basic biographical information, including the beginning of singing classes, information about teachers (K.Z. Shcherbinina, E.D. Kruglikova) who brought up the young singer. The beginning of A.V. Zinkina’s creative path is described. The article provides information on main roles in classical Russian and foreign operas, operettas, children’s performances, in national productions performed on the stage of the Chuvash State Musical Theater and the Opera and Ballet Theater, indicating the year of the first appearance in the role. Significant premieres of performances (“Tosca”, “Faust”, “Iolanta”, “Troubadour”, etc.) are noted, the versatility of the singer’s repertoire, including concert and chamber repertoire, is emphasized. The features of A.V. Sergeyeva-Zinkina’s idiom are given prominence to. The names of famous conductors and directors with whom the singer worked closely are given (V.A. Vazhorov, M.N. Adamovich, S. Lapirov, etc.). The history of pedagogical activity of current professor of the Chuvash State Institute of Culture and Arts Alevtina Vasilyevna Sergeeva-Zinkina is described in detail: at the Arts Department at I.N. Ulyanov Chuvash State University (which was the first in Chuvashia to start training vocalists with higher education since 1995), at the Vocal Art Department at the Chuvash State Institute of Culture and Arts (since 2000). The list of the most famous students – graduates of solo singing class headed by A.V. Zinkina is given, her most notable scientific and educational publications in the period of pedagogical work are indicated.

Od uzora do prezira / from admiration to contempt

D. H. Lawrence and his views on F. M. Dostoevsky used to change gradually – from the initial admiration and fascination with the works of this great Russian literary classic, which Lawrence had read in the period of the overall popularity ‘of all things Russian’ in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, to doubts this highly controversial and largely misunderstood British author expressed in the most prolific period of Modernism, when he began publishing his own fiction as well as some non-fictional and critical pieces on literature. The majority of critics and researchers of Lawrence and his opus argue that his denial of Dostoevsky’s importance stemmed not only from his own need to distance himself from the influence of certain works by Dostoevsky but also from his continuous fight with his innermost demons in the later phase of his creative work. It was in these moments that Lawrence sought answers to his questions in the works of other Russian authors translated into English at the time – Solovyov, Berdyaev, Shestov and Rozanov. Lawrence paid special attention to their perspective on certain books by Dostoevsky. With similar enthusiasm, he also analysed the critical explanations of Dostoevsky by his British contemporaries, such as Ford Madox Ford, Arnold Bennett, John Middleton Murry, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf. This paper focuses on Lawrence’s interpretation of The Grand Inquisitor, based on two key chapters from The Brothers Karamazov and written as a preface to the English translation by Samuel Koteliansky, ‘Kot,’ a Russian émigré Jew and Lawrence’s close friend. Although gravely ill, Lawrence managed to write this text in four days in February 1930. He died a month later at Vence, Southern France. It can be argued that in this last major critical piece of his, Lawrence concluded his decades-long re-reading and questioning of the influences that Dostoevsky and other Russian classics have exerted on him, as well as on the emergence and development of British Modernist fiction between 1910 and 1930.

Dostojevski na sarajevskoj pozorišnoj sceni / Dostoevsky in Sarajevo Theatres

The paper presents part of a research dedicated to the study of the theatrical adaptations of the great Russian classics in Sarajevo theatres, performed in the period between 1921, when the National Theatre was founded, and 2007. It focuses primarily on the literary and theatrical reception of the opus of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Since the founding of the oldest theatre in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1921, followed by the founding of other Sarajevo theatres (most notably the Chamber Theatre 55), Sarajevo has seen nine premieres of Dostoevsky. The paper will present various directorial concepts and dramatizations of Dostoevsky’s novels, most of which were met with disappointing reviews. An analysis and synthesis of Bosnian and Herzegovinian literary and theatrical criticism pertaining to the above-mentioned opus compared to Russian critical thought will be presented as well. We will introduce the theoretical ‘view’ of some issues which are inevitably presented to researchers when it comes to the prose works, or classical novel adaptation for theatre.

Suspended Lives

Lucy Caldwell’s 2016 adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters relocates the play into Belfast in the 1990s. This paper examines Caldwell’s adaptation in the context of Irish and Northern Irish rewritings of Chekhov’s dramatic works, paying attention to the motives behind appropriating the Russian works for Irish audiences. Inspired by the perceived affinity between the two seemingly distant cultures, Irish authors have tended to adapt Chekhov (and other Russian classics) to reflect on their own social, cultural, and political environment, often with the aim of shaping the cultural-political landscape of their present. Similarly to earlier Chekhov adaptations, Caldwell’s play engages not only with the original Russian work, but, most importantly, with the cultural-political context of its setting—the five hopeful years preceding the Belfast Agreement (1998), as well as the post-Agreement context of its writing. The play allows its audience in 2016 a complex, retrospective, re-evaluative view of the achievements of the peace process from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century. (ZSCS)

Information-Theoretic Method for Assessing the Quality of Translations.

In recent years, the task of translating from one language to another has attracted wide attention from researchers due to numerous practical uses, ranging from the translation of various texts and speeches, including the so-called "machine" translation, to the dubbing of films and numerous other video materials. To study this problem, we propose to use the information-theoretic method for assessing the quality of translations. We based our approach on the classification of sources of text variability proposed by A.N. Kolmogorov: information content, form, and unconscious author's style. It is clear that the unconscious "author's" style is influenced by the translator. So researchers need special methods to determine how accurately the author's style is conveyed, because it, in a sense, determines the quality of the translation. In this paper, we propose a method that allows us to estimate the quality of translation from different translators. The method is used to study translations of classical English-language works into Russian and, conversely, Russian classics into English. We successfully used this method to determine the attribution of literary texts.

Творческая самоидентификация Владислава Ходасевича в книге «Державин»

The relevance and novelty of this article lie in the analysis of creative self-identification in the book by V. Khodasevich “Derzhavin” (1931), which is an access to the author’s thought. This study is based on the methods of the Russian psychoanalyst Ya. M. Kogan, set forth in the book “Identification and its role in artistic creativity” (1926). This work has never been considered in literary criticism from this perspective. The works of modern scientists are also taken into account: D. P. Bak, K. A. Krylov, V. I. Tyupa, E. V. Kharitonova, M. A. Khatyamova and others who study literature from the point of view of “reflection”, “auto-reflection”, “self-reflection”, “self-identification”, processes involved in the work of writers. The main part of the article focuses on the most important points of contact between the author of the book Khodasevich and the hero Derzhavin as an artist, on the desire to understand the movement of thoughts and the reasons for the actions of the hero, their aesthetic dominantidea. In the course of analysis, it was established that Derzhavin’s creative acts during the period of creating significant literary texts, which were included in the article for analysis, turned out to be significant for Khodasevich: fragments of the odes “Waterfall”, “God”, as well as the unfinished philosophical poem “The River of Times in its aspiration ...”. It has been established that immersion in the attitude of the poet of another era was necessary for another author for self-realization. Khodasevich’spremeditation is taken into account, united with his hero by the similar ideas of the creative process as such, regardless of the time that is taking place. A certain role in this for Khodasevich was played by the processes of self-identification and identification, which influenced the artistic consciousness of the poet of the 20th century, uniting him with the heroic creators of the Russian classics.

Мотив противостояния человека болезни COVID-19 в новейших стихотворениях Александра Городницкого, Дмитрия Быкова, Дмитрия Данилова

Alexander Gorodnitsky, Dmitry Bykov, and Dmitry Danilov are among the first modern Russian poets to problematize and transfer into an aesthetic space the previously unknown disease that has spread across the whole world – COVID-19. Analysis of selected works has made it possible to highlight the general motif of human confrontation with the disease. The figurative system of the confrontation correlates with the aesthetics of depicting war, revolution, political races, duels, or sports matches. Gorodnitsky uses stable associations connected with the image of the Great Patriotic War. Bykov compares fear of the unknown in a pandemic with fear associated with revolutionary time, and also identifies the head of state with a deadly disease. Finally, Danilov focuses his attention on the existential dimension of the struggle, as well as on the thoughts and inner experiences of a modern man.All three authors are mindful of Russian literary tradition. The sources of inspiration for them were mainly the Russian classics: Pushkin, Nekrasov, Blok. The lyric compositions analysed in the article can certainly be considered as a prelude to the further development of the topic of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The story of Ch. Aitmatov Jamila: on the problem of literary embodiment of the cultural identity of Central Asia

This study gives a general description of the "literature of the peoples of the USSR", presents the key features of the creative manner of Chingiz Aitmatov, an outstanding Kyrgyz Soviet writer, one of the few representatives of multinational Soviet literature who have earned international recognition. Special attention is paid to the key literary text of the prose writer, from which, in fact, his creative biography began — the story Jamila, published in 1958. The authors of the article focus on the structure of the central character, a young woman from a distant Kyrgyz village, who found the strength in the name of love to overcome the pressure of national tradition, which very rigidly determined the social role and fate of a woman. The portrait characteristic of Jamila is analyzed in detail; her psychological features, which are most clearly manifested in comparison with other heroes of this story; the logic of her character development, first of all, the reasons for the break with the traditional way of life. The conclusions note that Aitmatov"s story should be decoded today in the logic of the study of human character, which was formed in the Russian classics.

Russian Classics, or a Myth in the Struggle Against... a Myth? Reflections on the Book by Vladimir Kantor

Рецензия на: Кантор В.К. Русская классика, или бытие России. — М. : Центр гуманитарных инициатив, Университетская книга, 2014.

РЕЦЕНЗИЯ НА КНИГУ: ГОЛУБКОВ М.М. ЗАЧЕМ НУЖНА РУССКАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА? Из записок университетского словесника. М.: Прометей, 2021. 344 с.

The author of the review analyzes the monograph by M.M. Golubkov, a well-known expert in Russian literature of the 20th century, Professor, Head of the Department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. This book falls into three parts. The first deals with the relevance of Russian classics of the 20th century, the reasons for its “expulsion” from university and school literature programs, and the didactic potential that is ignored in the era of the Unified State Examination. The second part is devoted to one of the most urgent problems of modern historical and literary science – the problem of periodization. The third chapter of the monograph is a purely analytical one, which presents rather unexpected “rapprochements” of some key people in the latest Russian prose: Gorky and Solzhenitsyn, Solzhenitsyn and Polyakov, etc. From the point of view of the author of the review, the new book by M.M. Golubkov may be of interest not only to university teachers, but also to school teachers of Russian literature of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Жанровые разновидности описания: специфика функционирования глагольных предикатов

The paper is devoted to the consideration of the specifics of the descriptive type of speech and the study of the features of the functioning of verb predicates in the context of the genre description paradigm. The empirical basis of the work is fiction, descriptive texts are selected from the works of Russian classics of the 19th-20th centuries. The work uses a functional-semantic approach and the method of contextual analysis. The genre description paradigm is formed by a description-landscape, a description-interior, a description-portrait and a description of a thing (displaying the external properties of an object). In all genre varieties of description, the contours of the spatial arrangement of objects are outlined: through actants and predicates, the referential space is transmitted, in addition to which the receptive space associated with pragmatic meanings and subjective navigation can be explored. The greatest variety of groups of predicates, is observed in the description-landscape. A more limited set of lexical-semantic groups of predicates is presented in the description-interior. The most limited set of groups of predicates is fixed in the description-portrait due to the limited set of elements that make up the external image of a person. Actional semantics predicates can be used in descriptive genres, acquiring the function of characterizing space, while the acting object, perceived as one of the signs of the described picture, is important.