Russian Writers Research Articles

Restoration of time: Henry Bergson and Vladimir Nabokov

The purpose of the study is to interpret the idea of “restoring time”, common to the texts of the Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov and the French intuitionist philosopher Henri Bergson. The concept of “restoration of time” in Vladimir Nabokov’s texts, viewing it through the lens of Henri Bergson’s philosophy is explored. According to Nabokov “time is essentially memory in the process of its unfolding”. Moreover, that memory itself is a dynamic and never-changing process. Therefore, the conventional notion that restoring the past is simply about retrieving previous “moments” does not hold true in Nabokov’s approach. As a result of studying the phenomenon, it is concluded that in Nabokov’s system the restoration of time (the past) should become the restoration of the very movement of our memories, constantly “flowing” to the present. The reconstruction of time (the past) should focus on capturing the very movement of our memories, which continuously flow from the past to the present. Bergson referred to this movement as the basis of “pure memory” phenomenon, understood as the constant pressure of memories on the present and as the essence of “duration”: genuine inner time, that cannot be divided into moments, but rather is an uninterrupted ever-growing stream of our impressions. Thus, the Bergson’s philosophy effectively addresses numerous Nabokovian issues, both peripheral and central.

Lacunarity and Neology: Diachronic Aspect (Based on the Material of Russian Writers’ Epistolary Texts of the 19th Century)

Purpose. The author considers the problem of establishing a correlation between lacunarity and neologization of the language system in the diachronic aspect using methods of semantic, contrastive, contextual, corpus and quantitative analysis. The material for the study is Russian writers’ epistolary texts of the second half of the 19th century. The author specifies the meaning of the term lacuna in relation to diachrony: a lacuna is an empty cell in the lexical system of a language, revealed retrospectively by detecting means that compensate for it. Results. The author’s classification of lacunae is based on a semiotic criterion: conceptual lacunae are empty cells in the lexical system, which are characterized by the absence of both the signifier and the signified (concept); lexical lacunae are empty cells in the lexical system, which lack a signifier, but have a non-verbalized signified that exists in public or individual consciousness. Conclusion. Extralinguistic and intra-linguistic factors determined the formation and compensation of communicatively significant lacunae in the lexical system at the level of language and speech: changes in the socio-political, economic, cultural life of Russia; interlanguage contacts; the need for nomination or re-designation of the concept; the laws of linguistic regularity, analogy, generalization and differentiation, economy, the tendency to expressiveness.

Русские религиозные философы Серебряного века о роли и функциях ересей в истории

The Russian religious philosophers of the Silver Age created the original concept of heresies. Their interpretation of heresies is ambivalent: first, heresies are symptoms of spiritual quests and the self-knowledge of a free spirit; second, two heresies that helped fuel the heresies of the twentieth century were chiliasm (S. Bulgakov) and spontaneous nihilism (N. Berdyaev). The inspiration for these came from the teachings about the end of time. This article will consider the point of view on heresy in the context of the doctrine of the absolute and the philosophy of history by L. Karsavin, the metaphysics of the spirit by N. Berdyaev, and the concept of Christian socialism by S. Bulgakov. Their idea is that heresies testify to the development of Christian doctrine, i.e., to its illnesses and impasses. He writes heresies into the history of spiritual research. All these concepts were a kind of response to the challenge of history, which Friedrich Nietzsche called "the death of God." In Russian thought, it manifested itself in the form of ritual belief among the people and the deadening of official church theology. Church writers did not see any social problems or an impending revolution. Therefore, Russian writers and philosophers of the Silver Age took upon themselves the mission of warning about the crisis of the religious attitude towards the world. Russian religious philosophers were interested in the phenomenon of the deadening of the Christian spirit in official church Christianity, and their special task was to counter the process of the deadening of the spirit in Orthodoxy. This caused the condemnation of all Russian religious philosophers in church circles. They were accused of heretical ideas of cosmism and sophiology. However, today they are the property of Russian religious culture; their works are included not only in university programs in philosophy and theology but also in the programs of theological seminaries.

Dostoevsky in Nagoya: The XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society

For five days, the Japanese city of Nagoya became the world’s Dostoevsky capital. The XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society (IDS) was held here on August 24–28, 2023 For the first time since the establishment of the IDS in 1971, it took place in Asia. This happened despite the pandemic and the aggravation of international problems and thanks to the great efforts of the organizers from Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, who carefully thought out the program of the event, as well as of the Symposium participants from all over the world, who represented several research generations and scientific schools and demonstrated a variety of approaches to the study of scientific biography and creative work of the classic of Russian and world literature. The XVIII Symposium was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the novel “Demons,” the most political and religious work of the great Russian writer, published in 1871–1872. Therefore, the main focus of the Symposium was “"Demons" in their time and 150 years later.” The participants of the scientific forum paid considerable attention to the topic “Dostoevsky in art (music, cinema, theater, painting).” Among other topical issues of modern Dostoevsky studies, the following were considered at the Symposium: new methods of studying the writer’s work, including those related to the development of Digital Dostoevsky, problems of poetics and textual criticism of his legacy, new biographical studies and archival materials, Dostoevsky in the works of M. M. Bakhtin and, of course, Dostoevsky’s reception in Asia and the influence of his ideas and images on Asian culture and literature. The final event of the Sympo-sium was the round table “Dostoevsky and modern Japanese writers,” at which popular prose writers Fuminori Nakamura, Risa Wataya and Keiichiro Hirano spoke. Each of them spoke about the influence of the Russian writer’s work on his texts and discussed the incredible popularity of Dostoevsky’s ideas in today’s world. This article provides an overview of the reports, cultural events and the main results of the XVIII Symposium of the International Dostoevsky Society in Nagoya.

Деятельность В. Я. Богучарского по созданию Музея имени Л. Н. Толстого в Санкт-Петербурге

The article examines the participation of the pre-revolutionary historian, publicist and public figure V. Ya. Bogucharsky in the creation of the Leo Tolstoy Museum in St. Petersburg. This event was timed to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of the great Russian writer.

“HE LOVED HIS NATIVE LANGUAGE TO THE POINT OF ADORATION...ˮ (A new reading of A.N. Ostrovsky’s texts on Kostroma land: bibliography review)

For many years, Кostroma researchers, full and associate members of the educational and scientific research laboratory “Lexicology and Lexicography” currently operating at Kostroma State University, have been studying the works of A.N. Ostrovsky in linguistic terms. Russian Russian writers have worked out in sufficient detail both the problem of the folk-colloquial, including dialectal, stream in the multidimensional work of the classic of Russian literature playwright, and the problem of the playwright’s contribution to the creation of a new Russian literary language built on democratic principles and continuing the Pushkin tradition of organic fusion of book and spoken elements. The topics such as “Lexical richness of the Russian language” with subtopics are noted: vocabulary of significant and official parts of speech, productive and rare, motivated and unmotivated, free and composed of stable turns, modern and outdated, neutral and affected vocabulary, own and common, locally and stylistically colored, including vernacular, professionalism and jargonisms, native Russian and borrowed vocabulary, etc., as well as the topic “Grammatical features of the hypotaxis of texts by A.N. Ostrovsky”, etc. The genre theme of studying the language of the playwright’s works is embodied in more than a hundred scientific articles in academic publications of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, peer-reviewed scientific journals, various collections of scientific papers and materials of scientific conferences, in the creation of dictionaries, encyclopedias, monographs, dissertations. The authors of the review article also offer a bibliographic index of works on the language of A.N. Ostrovsky’s works published by Kostroma researchers in 1974–2022.

A Whole Mind, an Unconquered Eye: Self-Reliance and Freedom in Henry James’s Daisy Miller

Looking at Henry James’s literary contexts can fruitfully help shed light on his work. Brilliantly versed in the literary traditions of his time, he was influenced by American, English, French and Russian writers. This article traces the influence of Emerson’s notions of freedom, natural spontaneity, innocence and self-confidence as expressed in his essays “Nature” (1836) and “Self-Reliance” (1841) in Daisy Miller (1878), whilst it investigates the ways James’s novella articulates the all-important dichotomy of self-sufficiency (individual freedom, autonomy, innocence) vs. social conformity (fear, heteronomy, hypocrisy) at play in the narrative. Daisy is the female embodiment of self-reliance as conceptualised in Emerson’s homonymous essay – a free, innocent, uncultivated, wild, and unsophisticated spirit – and so she is never afraid. Epistemology turns out to be central to the conception of the novella, as Winterbourne and the American matriarchs are shown struggling to grasp the protagonist’s puzzling innocence and true nature. As Daisy is a wild being living in accord with Nature as conceived by Emerson, the novella is punctuated by critical moments where the heroine is most at home when enmeshed in the green world, particularly in the outdoor scenes in the Château de Chillon in the Swiss Alps, the Palaces of the Caesars, the Colosseum and the Protestant cemetery in Rome.

Рассказ А.П. Чехова «Студент» и рефлексия венгерского писателя Деже Костоланьи в очерке «Tavaszi gyász» («Весенний траур»)

Chekhov’s Short Story “The Student” and Dezső Kosztolányi’s Reflection: the Feuilleton Titled “Spring Mourning”. Dezső Kosztolányi’s feuilleton titled Spring Mourning, written in 1909, undertakes to evoke a decisive feeling from the childhood of the writer: the atmosphere of sadness that pervades Good Friday. This piece of writing considers a childhood incident as an experience determining the adult personality, and the artistically drawn images in it come into contact with A.P. Chekhov’s 1894 short story “The Student.” Kosztolányi’s life experience depicted in the journalistic text becomes interpretable within the recipient’s horizon of the Russian writer’s short prose fiction but, at the same time, under the influence of Chekhov’s poetics and through the surplus of artistic textualization, the piece of writing not only concretizes the former incident, but also expands it and transforms it into a universal experience, opening the way for experiencing the mystery of Easter by an individual.

Reflections on Chinese studies of Russian women's prose

The active development of women's prose is an important phenomenon in world literature. After the 1980s, a large number of works by Russian writers were translated in China, which attracted more attention of Chinese Russian scholars. The subject of the research is the historical and cultural prerequisites for the study of Russian women's prose in China and the current state of research on this prose. The relevance of the article can be determined by the fact that with the rapid changes in the socio-cultural environment, the study of women's prose in China gradually demonstrates a systematic and interdisciplinary growing trend, thanks to which it is possible to take a fresh look at the study of Russian women's prose in China. Russian writers' main translated works and the main studies of Chinese scientists on Russian women's prose, published since 1942 to the present, are the material of the study. The research method is the analysis of review materials and generalization of philology researches opinions. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is the answers received to questions about the context, development, current state and directions of studying Russian women's prose in China. Conclusions are drawn that 1992 is an important moment, before that Chinese scientists mainly paid attention to the translation of foreign women's literature, including Russian, after 1992, through a practical analysis of Western feminist theories in literary studies, Chinese researchers proposed the concept of "soft feminism", which influenced the development of women's prose in China, which led to attention to the inner world of a woman, her role not only in the family, but also in culture and history.

Роман В. Скотта «Пуритане» в контексте романа И.А. Гончарова «Обломов»

The article describes the study of typological connections between the novel Puritans by Walter Scott and Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov. For the first time, these literary texts are considered through the prism of depiction as an artistic and aesthetic category, based on the genre system of fine arts. The name of the “Scottish sorcerer” is found in every novel of Goncharov’s trilogy (Ordinary History (1847), Oblomov (1859), The Precipice (1869). Most often, numerous landscapes can be found both on the pages of Scott’s and Goncharov’s novels. These landscape paintings are brought together by the plasticity of the image, decorativeness, careful detailing, epic manner and coloristic features. When creating idyllic landscapes, the Russian writer is guided by Scott’s style, combining both “high” poetic and everyday life within the framework of one image. Important in this regard are the landscapes of the famous ninth chapter of Oblomov’s Dream and as well as the pictures of Scott’s nature scattered throughout the text. In addition to the interdisciplinary genre of landscape, the authors have similar portrait descriptions (Oblomov and Milnwood). A special place in these novels is occupied by everyday scenes that convey the color of everyday life, the poeticization of reality , which is an important aesthetic category for both Russian and Scottish writers. They are in the spirit of the Flemish tradition. In addition, both novels are related by the typological similarity of storylines and characters (main and secondary).

«Поденщик просвещения»: вопросы литературного творчества и печати в публицистике Инала Канукова

The article examines the journalistic legacy of the largest representative of the Ossetian enlightenment, the first Ossetian Russian-speaking writer and journalist I.D. Kanukov (1851–1899) in terms of literary work, the literary process, the socio-historical significance of fiction and the press and literary-critical constructions. The basic ideological principles of the heritage, it’s thematic, genre and methodological priorities, the circle of Russian writers especially authoritative for I.D. Kanukov, intertextual connections of his works of the corresponding kind are revealed, taking into account historical, biographical and cultural circumstances. The study finds out that the dominant place in the writer’s views on the historical significance of literature and the press is occupied by the educational and literary-centrist idea of “sacrificial service” to the truth and the people, through the prism of which I.D. Kanukov examines the works of Russian writers and interprets particular theoretical issues: the social status of a writer and a journalist, the relationship between a writer and a reader, creative direction, psychology of creativity, typification of character, etc.; that along with an unconditionally progressive, democratic understanding of the social functions of fiction and the press, I.D. Kanukov has some elements of didacticism and “orientation”. The place and significance of I.D. Kanukov’s journalism in the context of Ossetian and Russian literature and public thought is indicated.

ALEXANDR NIKOLAYEVICH NIKOLYUKIN

Alexandr Nikolayevich Nikolyukin, a major scholar, Soviet and Russian literary historian, doctor of philologу, academic organiser, passed away. A.N. Nikolyukin was a chief researcher at INION RAS, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Literary Studies, a member of the Russian Writers’ Union, a full member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and International Academy of Pedagogical Education. He is the author of more than 600 academic publications. A.N. Nikolukin’s works on the history of American and English literature, Russian émigré literature, as well as on V.V. Rozanov, has formed more than one generation of literary scholars Many of his editions had became an event. His presence in Russian academy united epochs and became a symbol of devoted service to philology.

Езикови средства за представяне образа на имението в руския реми- нисцентен текст

The article analyzes the content structure and linguistic means of creating the image of the manor in the Russian-language text on the material of reminiscence character. Texts of different periods in which descriptions of the manor are revealed are analyzed. The work employs a complex approach combining elements of etymological, structural-semantic, contextual analysis. The study concludes that the conceptual core of the image of the manor has been preserved since ancient times: the manor is a place of the mastered world, a dwelling place. This meaning corresponds to the image of the manor in the reminiscences of Russian writers and memoirists. The text of the reminiscences of the XIX-XX centuries allows us to trace the updated semantic dominants: the transformation of the image of the manor over two centuries, the change of ideas about the order of things in the world, the destruction of the ideal image. The dynamics of the development of the image of the manor in the Russian literary text and individual-author semantic increments are revealed, as well as in the systematization of linguistic means of creating the image.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Author Translation as a Special Type of Translation Process (Based on the Analysis of Author Translations of Lolita and Camera Obscura Novels by V. V. Nabokov)

The article is devoted to the study of the author’s translation, which has its own characteristics. Very few writers or poets have also translated their work into another language. The main reason for this is the small number of writers who are bilingual and have the talent as translators. The author-translator must know not only his native language, but also the foreign language he is translating his work to the intricacies, and he must be intimately familiar with the culture of the speakers of that language. Although author translation is considered by experts to be the most reliable type of translation, it also has its shortcomings. The cases of departure from the original, which are often found in the translated texts of the author-translators, often turn the translated work into an imitation of the original and lead to the disappearance of part of the informative load in it. On the other hand, this situation can result in the weakening of the aesthetic impact of the translated work. The activity of the well-known Russian writer V. V. Nabokov in the field of author translation should be specially mentioned. He wrote his works in Russian and English and translated some of them from these two languages. In particular, it is possible to appreciate the translation of the Lolita writer’s novels from English to Russian, and Camera Obscura (Laughter in the Dark) from Russian to English as examples of the author’s translation. In addition to the study of the theoretical problems of the author’s translation, the article attempts to determine the advantages and disadvantages of the author’s translation as a type of translation based on the analysis of the above-mentioned author’s translations by Nabokov.

Russian literature in teaching Russian as a foreign language

The promotion of the Russian language in the world is one of the main goals of the modern Russian education strategy. An important part of this problem is teaching Russian to foreigners in Russian universities. The current problem of modern Russian studies is the search for the most effective forms, methods and means of Russian language learning. Teaching Russian to foreigners should be built on an interdisciplinary basis. The most important component of teaching Russian to foreign students is literature. Turning to it, foreigners get acquainted with the history, culture and traditions of Russia from different eras. Russian literature is very popular in different countries. The works of Russian writers are studied in schools and universities in China.The article presents the authorial method of teaching the Russian language to Chinese bachelors and masters based on a graphical and symbolic analysis of Russian literature. Our methodology uses the practice-oriented traditions of semiotics, mnemonics and ergonomics. When studying Ivan Turgenev’s story “Bezhin Meadow”, we focus on the features of its analysis in the Chinese audience. This lesson is preceded by a historical-literary and cultural commentary of the teacher who uses various multimedia tools. An integral part of our methodology is the creation of an adapted educational text with marked stresses, vocabulary work and various types of retelling, grammar tasks and a graphic drawing of the analyzed text. With this approach to the educational process, foreign students develop visual memory, better understand Russian grammar and improve oral coherent speech, which contributes to a deeper and more meaningful interest in the Russian language. The use of modern technologies, while working on a literary text, helps foreign students to better understand the national flavor of Russian literature. The study has led to the need to implement new approaches to teaching the Russian language to Chinese students at the North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov.

Традиции русской и советской культуры в повести Лу Яо «Судьба»

The study aims to shed light on the peculiarities of interpretations of Russian and Soviet culture traditions in Lu Yao’s story “Life” (1982), which became a classic of the Chinese literature of the xúngēn movement in the last third of the XX century. It is the first time that this work by the Chinese prose writer has become the subject of a separate study, in addition, the paper defines the range of works by Russian writers and artists whose traditions are reflected in the story, reveals the role of images and motifs of Russian art in its ideological and artistic singularity, which accounts for the scientific originality of the study. The artistic images of Russian and Soviet art direct references to which are contained in Lu Yao’s work served as the subject of comparative analysis. As a result of the study, it was determined that Lu Yao uses a very wide context of Russian and Soviet culture, including novels by I. A. Goncharov, N. A. Ostrovsky, stories by Ch. T. Aitmatov, V. G. Rasputin, Soviet paintings, and demonstrates adherence to the principles of realistic aesthetics in the story “Life”. The images created by the Chinese author significantly complement the gallery of typological heroes of the Russian literature of the XIX-XX centuries (the hero of the time, the ideal female image, the wise old person), bringing new artistic interpretations in keeping with the Chinese national cultural and historical tradition.

Platon Oyunsky as a writer of romanticism: to his 130th anniversary

Platon Alekseevich Oyunsky (1893 – 1939) was the founder of Yakut Soviet literature, a revolutionary, and a major statesman. Considering the Russian writer of revolutionary-romantic style Maksim Gorky as his teacher, Oyunsky founded the poetry of struggle and storm. Oyunsky was a bearer of the Yakut folklore and an olonkhohut storyteller. That is why his works at the levels of language, images and plots are closely connected with the oral folk art. As a scholar, he was the first to conduct a research on the Yakut heroic epic "Yakut tale (olonkho), its plot and content" (1927). He was also the first to compose a classic sample of the Yakut olonkho "Nurgun Botur the Swift" of 40 thousand lines (1932), thanks to which the whole world learnt this work, and the olonkho was recognised by UNESCO as a universal masterpiece (2005). The article aims to investigate the origins of Oyunsky's artistic method – romanticism. The question of topical importance is the definition of his creative method and style. The article aims to investigate the origins and principles of Oyunsky's artistic method on the basis of historical and specific method and genesis of the writer's creative quest. The study substantiates the conclusion that Oyunsky's romanticism determined his original and unique style in Yakut literature.

ОБРАЗ РЕБЁНКА В ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ УЖАСОВ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ СБОРНИКА Д. БОБЫЛЕВОЙ «ЗАБЫТЫЙ ЧЕЛОВЕК»)

The article examines the image of a child in the collection of short stories by the modern Russian writer Daria Bobyleva «The Forgotten Man». Seven stories of the collection are taken for analysis, in which the image of a child plays a key role in semantic and compositional terms. The paper attempts to classify the analyzed stories from the point of view of the meaning of the child's image. This image is considered from the point of view of its folklore sources, in particular – in the context of the heat features of the bylichek and post-folklore «creepy stories». The image of the child is analyzed as an important compositional element that allows you to create the effect of «terrible», as part of the other world. The article also discusses some psychological prerequisites that allow including the image of a child in stories based on mystical horror. As a result, of the conducted research, it can be concluded that the image of a child plays an important role in creating artistic unity in this collection

Russian Classical Literature in Search of Harmony between Morality and Law

The paper deals with the problem of the correlation of law, morality and morals in a number of works of Russian classical literature. It is shown that this problem is characteristic of Russian literature, which is unconditionally recognized as one of the highest achievements of world literature. The peculiarity of Russian and then Soviet literature is that it pays increased attention to the inner world of a person, the motives of their behavior. This is how the phenomenon that has been called the «Russian psychological novel» arose. Russian writers have repeatedly raised the problem of the discrepancy between the content of laws and generally accepted ideas about morals, especially morality. The paper talks about the continuity of Soviet and Russian literature, which was often denied both in domestic and foreign literary studies. Sociological, philosophical, and often legal problems were initially raised in the literature. And only then they became the subject of discussion in special branches of knowledge. Many pre-revolutionary jurists have established themselves as writers. Such examples took place in the Soviet period. The discrepancy between moral and legal assessments remains one of the urgent problems. The author justifies his belief that literature should educate. Without morality, the law loses its value, as Russian writers have repeatedly drawn attention to. The return of the habit of reading classical (and not only) literature, which will make it possible to regain the status of the most reading country of the world, will resolve the conflict of law and morality; the author proves a similar position in the framework of this paper.

From the history of Spanish translations of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” made at different times.

The article discusses some publication features of the Spanish translations of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”, made at different times in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The novel “Anna Karenina” has been translated into Spanish numerous times. To date, there are many translation versions that are of great interest in terms of their study and analysis, since each of the versions is a reflection of its historical era, allowing us to explore various linguistic phenomena. The Spanish reception of the novel “Anna Karenina” is considered within the framework of the history of Leo Tolstoy's oeuvre reception as a whole. This paper traces how the historical context and relations between Russia and Spain influenced the perception of Tolstoy in Spain. Particular attention is paid to the specifics of the first translations of the novel into Spanish, which became the starting point in popularizing one of the greatest Russian writer’s work in Spain. We also consider the role of popularizers of Russian culture in Spain, and its significant impact not only on the emergence of new translations of Tolstoy’s works, but also on the establishment and strengthening of Russian-Spanish literary connections.