scholarly journals Neither BURGHER nor BARIN: An Imagological and Intercultural Reading of Andrey Stoltz in Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov (1859)

Slovene ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-30
Author(s):  
Joshua S. Walker

This article presents a reevaluation of Andrey Stolz as more than either a “weak point” in the novel or a “plot device” and “simple foil” to Oblomov (as D. Senese represents Dobrolyubov’s position). I investigate the problematic nature of “Germanness” in the novel according to the Imagological methodology, and this allows me to explore how Andrey’s intercultural identity is mediated through a myriad of different perspectives in the novel. Andrey accesses two politically-loaded symbolic sets of the German character in mid-nineteenth-century Russian literature: as an outsider, an Other, who is a negatively-valued opposite by which the positive Russian Self can be defined; and as an aspect of the internalized German in Russian culture, where the Other functions as a symbol of the westernizing process within Russian society. Andrey’s unstable Germanness thus exposes the paradox of expressing the Russian Self in the 19th century, where the Russian is constructed in contrast to-yet also in terms of-the imagined Western Other. I therefore challenge the prevailing assumption that Andrey is meant only to be the “antidote” to Oblomov, and suggest that his character elucidates the instability of the Russian Self Image.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-133
Author(s):  
Maria R. Nenarokova

The article focuses on the reception of Russian classical literature translations in the English-speaking culture. The research was carried out on the material of three existing translations of ‘Forest and Steppe’ by both Russian and English translators published in 1895, 1955 and 1967. The main objective of the research is to determine the difficulties translators of Russian literature of the 19th century could face in the case of Turgenev's epigraph to ‘Forest and Steppe’. The tasks of the study were to define and describe the peculiarities of conveying the epigraph’s vocabulary, to outline the group of the most important keywords of the text, to recognize and describe discrepancies in their translation, to indicate why the chosen option is possible or impossible in the translation of Turgenev’s text. The study showed that Turgenev's worldview was formed under the influence of the culture of ‘rhetorical word’, and the epigraph to ‘Forest and Steppe’ proves it. The epigraph consists of a chain of symbolic images that add up to a single picture. The writer's worldview determined the style of the epigraph, the choice of vocabulary, and the composition of the text. For translators, the main difficulty at the lexical level lies in the fact that they often choose words that carry a greater emotional load than Turgenev’s vocabulary, and also introduce tropes, absent in the original, into translations. On the one hand, the translations create a realistic picture, in contrast to Turgenev’s symbolic landscape, on the other hand, the atmosphere of the text, reflecting the personality of the writer, is destroyed. The translations mirror profound changes that took place in the 19th–20th centuries in the European worldview.


Author(s):  
Thomas Carrier-Lafleur

Cet article propose d’analyser deux aspects majeurs, et pourtant méconnus, d’À la recherche du temps perdu : d’une part, celui d’« imaginaire médiatique », d’autre part, celui de « dynamique du regard ». Tous deux sont propres au XIXe siècle français, espace-temps d’inventions majeures pour notre modernité culturelle et artistique. Le texte proustien, un pied dans le XIEe siècle et l’autre dans le XXe, apparaît ainsi comme un catalyseur et comme un passeur. Le « temps retrouvé » de la Recherche, c’est aussi celui d’un XIXe siècle rendu sensible par le roman, médiatisé par l’œuvre. Le déploiement et la floraison de ces deux thématiques (la première questionnant la problématique de la mondanité et l’autre celle de l’imaginaire de l’œil et de la vision) seront relevés de façon générale dans la Recherche, puis on proposera deux études de cas ― sur le journal et sur la photographie ― qui viendront les illustrer.AbstractThis article proposes to analyze two major aspects of the novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In search of lost time/Remembrance of things past), by Marcel Proust: on one hand, what is called “l’imaginaire médiatique”, on the other hand, “la dynamique du regard”. Both are specific to the 19th century in France, time and place of major inventions for our cultural and artistic modernity. The proustian novel, a foot in the 19th century and the other in the 20th, seems thus like a catalyst and a frontier runner. The “time regained” by In search of lost time is also that of the 19th century, precisely mediated by the novel. The deployment of these two sets of themes (the first questioning the problems of “mondanité” — social life, social network, social gossip and so on —, the second those of vision in a civilization of the eye) will be generally identified in the novel, after which two case studies (on newspapers and on photography) will be proposed to illustrate them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-102
Author(s):  
Irina Belyaeva ◽  
Elżbieta Tyszkowska-Kasprzak

The article examines the correlation of the Russian classic novel with the Easter archetype dominant in Russian culture. The authors believe that the novel assumed a central position in the genre system of 19th century Russian literature, not only because of its natural openness, which allowed it to recreate life and man both in the general dimension and in private manifestations, but also because of the greatest responsiveness of this genre to the spiritual needs of Russian culture. The article examines the “plot space” of the Russian novel, which gravitates towards the archetypal model, actualizing the scenario of rehabilitation (Dostoevsky) / awakening (Goncharov), or salvation. Not only doesn’t the hero’s line in the Russian novel imply an end; moreover, as it lines up vertically, it suggests his rebirth to a “new life,” sometimes even posthumous, as was the case with Turgenev’s Bazarov, or through the fear of falling into the hellish abyss of modern life, as is it was with Oblomov. Using the example of novels by F. Dostoevsky, I. Turgenev, I. Goncharov and L. Tolstoy, the article demonstrates that the main mission of the hero of the Russian novel was that of personal salvation, the achievement of “new happiness” (Prince Andrei Bolkonsky), which is associated with forgiveness, a willingness to accept God and with the “new life.” The Easter nature of Russian culture predetermines the gravitation of the Russian classical novel (as a typological variety of the Russian novel) to the artistic realizations of the idea of salvation present in world literature in genres of a non-novel nature. The Russian novel primarily developed the storylines and motifs that originated in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Goethe’s Faust, which suggested two options for personal salvation: the awareness of sins and “behind the door of the grave.” The second option was more relevant for the 19th century Russian novel. The savior hero, rooted in Cervantes’s novel, was also relevant for Russian literature, although not as popular. Taking into account the complex explorations of modern writers in the field of the novel genre, the authors conclude that there is a present-day connection with the Russian classic novel, i.e., in E. Vodolazkin’s prose: apparent signs of a “Dante plot” are present in the novel Lavr. Regardless of all the metamorphoses, the Russian classical novel is still a national literary model in the space of Russian culture.


Author(s):  
K. V. Bezchasniy

L.N. Tolstoy’s views of understanding of essence of a matter of life and death, because of the religious and philosophical discrepancies concerning suicide discussed in the Russian society of the middle of the 19th century are covered in article. The atmosphere and a political situation in the country promoted formation of a «positive» image of the suicide and promotion of act of terrorism as kinds of a suicide. Tragic events in parental family of the writer were an incitement to reflections about life values which have formed the basis of the novel «Anna Karenina».


2021 ◽  
pp. 98-115
Author(s):  
Olga A. Bogdanova ◽  

The article examines the metamorphoses of the image of St. Petersburg created in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, in the literature of the Silver age, in particular in the half-forgotten, but significant story of a major symbolist writer G.I. Chulkov “Autumn mists” (1916). It is shown that, on the one hand, Chulkov’s artistic experience is intertwined with the general trend of “rewriting the classics” for the Silver age, which was first noted by D.M. Magomedova, at the same time on the other — proved that “Autumn mists”, is primarily focused not on the “great five books” of Dostoevsky with the hero-ideologist in the center of each piece, and the synthetic image of St. Petersburg in the novel “Humiliated and offended” (1861), incorporates the positive connotations early works of the famous classics and accusatory — late, are the most complete polemical conclusion cultural dialogue with Dostoevsky at the end of the “Petersburg period” of Russian history. It is pointed out that Dostoevsky’s mythologized images were transformed into elements of symbolist and, more broadly, modernist poetics, as well as the rejection of psychologism and the reinterpretation of the writer’s historiosophical prophecies of the 19th century. Thus, “Autumn mists” is a restored link of the “Petersburg text” of Russian literature at the break of cultural and historical epochs, which, in the context of famous works on the same subject by I.F. Annensky, D.S. Merezhkovsky, A. Bely, A.A. Blok, and others of Chulkov’s contemporaries, has an indisputable value due to the many-sided meanings contained in it.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  

The collective monograph examines one of the least studied pages in the history of Russian literature of the 19th century — pre-symbolism. There are two versions of the approach to the pre-symbolism studies as an independent phenomenon are proposed in the book: “narrow” — consideration of the literary situation of the “timelessness” era of the 1870s-1880s, and “broad” — understanding of pre-symbolism as a special trend in Russian culture, which became a “bridge” connecting romanticism and symbolism. The following problems are discussed in the collective monograph are pre-symbolism – modernism – theory and individual practices; pre-symbolism as a phenomenon of Russian and European culture; pre-symbolism – predecessors and heirs; religious and philosophical aspects of the creativity of the pre-symbolists; the prosaic heritage of the pre-symbolist poets; poetics of A.K. Tolstoy, A.A. Fet, S.Ya. Nadson, K.K. Sluchevsky, Vl.S. Solovyov, A.A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov et al.; reception of pre-symbolists creativity in literature and criticism of the Symbolists (Andrei Bely, Fyodor Sologub) and the post-symbolists (Igor Severyanin, E. Zamyatin). For the first time, the book introduces archival materials from the epistolary and literary heritage of Vl. Solovyov, I.F. Annensky, A.L. Volynsky et al. The book can be recommended to philologists, philosophers, culturologists, and also to everyone interested in the development of Russian culture in the 19th – the first half of the 20th centuries.


Author(s):  
Gan Haiguan ◽  

Myth creation is an integral element of human consciousness. All the images related to Petersburg, due to its unique role in the process of Russian modernization and forming cultural heritage, have been mythologized in the folk literature. Based on the folk literature of Petersburg and the special situation of Russian modernization and with the combination of historism and mythicism, Russian writers, with their unique mythological thinking and awareness, created the modern myths of Petersburg, that have the same images and consistent thinking. The modern myths of Petersburg in the 19th-century Russian literature are rooted in Russian history and social reality and truly reflect all kinds of conflicts in the development of modernization of the Russian society. The myths interpret the problems of modern civilization and unfold the unchanging factors in the empirical world and historical development.


ICONI ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Svetlana P. Shlykova ◽  

The article is devoted to demonstrating the genesis of the archetype of the trickster in Russian literature. The antihero, the sources of whose anti-behavior are traced in harlequinade and skmorokh buffoonery, is examined on the material of folklore and literary works from the 18th to the early 20th century. Anti-behavior in Russian culture symbolizes a rebellion unrefl exed in the folk environment against the norms of behavior and orderliness of life imposed by those in power. The archetype of the trickster, which has longtime traditions in world culture, was personifi ed in Russia as the skomorokh, then the jester Farnos, who in many ways adopted the skomorokh traditions. Among the populace Petrukha Fornos became one of the favorite comic jester heroes, having acquired special popularity as the result of crude color woodcuts from the 18th century. In the 19th century the image of Farnos was transformed into Petrushka, a puppet character of the theatricalized genre. With his assistance the simplistic satirical subjects lay at the foundation of the so-called Petrushka theater which, despite the unaltered plot, bore an improvisational-play character, pertaining to a number of “baculine” comedies, in the 19th century the image of Petrushka was so popular, that it surpassed the oral folk tradition and found its place in literary compositions. In the early 20th century the image of Petrushka the trickster became the source for numerous interpretations in modernist literature.


Lyuboslovie ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 151-163
Author(s):  
Dehka Chavdarova ◽  

The idea of literariness of Russian culture, of the impact of literature on Russian life, is an axiom of Russian cultural consciousness, which however doesn’t cease to draw the attention of researchers. Russian literature itself, from the 19th century on to this day, manifests this idea, altering the semantics of the life-literature relationship. In Pietzuch’s story the attention is drawn to the metatextual commentary about the role and value of Russian classics (and literature in general), and about the literariness of Russian consciousness – a commentary close to scientific discourse. The writer conceptualises literature as an invariant embodying the spiritual experience of humanity, and reality as an imitation of literature, deprived of structure and meaning. He creates an image of contemporary Soviet reality, which is a travestied variant of the world of Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and punishment”. The conclusion refers to the development of similar axiologisation of Russian classics in the post-modernist remakes from the 1990s to this day.


ATAVISME ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Christina Dewi

Max Havelaar is a literary work by Multatuli, a.k.a. E.E. Douwes Dekker. This novel is usually known as a novel with an anti-colonial image. While in the other hand, this novel never suggests to stop colonialism done by Dutch in Hindia Belanda. This research aims at revealing the relationship between colonialism's views with its innovation of narrative technique in this novel. The first analysis is trying to do a focalization on MH. The writer wants to do it because MH presents an argument about the essence of colonialism in Hindia Belanda through opinions and views from three focalizations. MH uniquely uses three focalizers and its uniqueness is shown by Stern as a narrator-fokalizer in the Lebak Episode. Although Stern is one of the characters in the novel, it gives the impression that Stern is in a neutral position. He takes place in the middle-position between the two other character-focalizers. However, since he is one of the characters in this novel, his focalization is not perfectly neutral in the manner of inviting the readers to support the attitude of Multatuli, Readers are confronted to make a choice between the war of anticolonial or procolonial interests and to support either one of the two character-fokulizers : Multatuli or Droogstoppcl. The orientalism theory has been applied to conduct focalization in the novel as the research object.. The novel characterizes Multatuli and Stern as opposing figures against the forced labor while Droogstoppcl, on the other hand, as a figure who is supporting forced labor of the coffee trade. MH strove for labors to earn proper wages so that the issue about the procedures of cultuur-stelsel has a special place in MH. Anti-colonial traits are shown by a rejection of low wages, oppression, robbery, injustice, mistreating, and discrimination. This novel is influencing the colonial hegemony of the competition of industrial products among colonized countries in Europe in the 19th century. That is why liberation values in MH restricted only to the liberation of the labor class from capitalists and people from low-classes from tyrants. This novel does not discuss political liberation


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