Bruce Chatwin

Journeys ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-43

This article is an attempt to answer the question Bruce Chatwin posed in the title of the last book published during his life: What Am I Doing Here. A critical focus on Chatwin’s masterwork, The Songlines, and its exploration of nomadism paired with wandering, leads to an exploration of his lifelong quest for spiritual renewal and ascension. Part literary criticism, part personal essay, the article makes personal connections with Chatwin’s life and work. Included here are several book lists, featuring an extensive list of books that Chatwin read and references in his own writing, assembled possibly for the first time.

2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Francis

The working-class writer, having moved into a middle-class dominated field, often feels alienated from their old and new cultures – separated as they are from their heritage and not quite grounded in the new elite circle. The markers of working-class culture are much harder to define in our hyper-modern situation, and this exacerbates the alienation. This position opens up possibilities in perception and expression from those in the margins and off-kilter positions. Tracing the multivoiced qualities of Tony Harrison’s ‘V’ and R. M. Francis’s poetics, alongside biographical and autobiographical details, this hybrid article argues that off-kilter and outcast voices, like those in the aforementioned class liminality, are in the best place to explore and discuss the difficult to navigate cultures, communities and identities. This fusion of personal essay, poetry and literary criticism considers the unusual, marginal and liminal positioning of working-class writers, researchers and academics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-147
Author(s):  
S. V. Sheyanova ◽  
◽  
N. M. Yusupova ◽  

Introduction: at present the reader’s audience is particularly interested in creative experiments in which the historical fate of the Russian peasantry in the «turning» eras is artistically comprehended. The article is devoted to the study of the problem-thematic range of modern Mordovian historical prose. The subject of analysis is the peculiarity of the reception of the period of collectivization and dekulakization in the story by Erzyan prose writer A. Doronin «A Wolf Ravine». Objective: to reveal the features of the artistic reconstruction of the events of the 1930s, the modeling of the relationship between a man and society in the story by A. Doronin «A Wolf Ravine».Research materials: the story by A. Doronin «A Wolf Ravine». Results and novelty of the research: the historical story « A Wolf Ravine » for the first time becomes the object of scientific understanding and is introduced into the context of Finno-Ugric literary criticism. A. Doronin artistically interprets the real events and circumstances of the resettlement of dispossessed peasants of the Volga region to the uninhabited steppes of Kazakhstan. As a result of the study, we conclude that the actualization of this problem-thematic cluster is due to the creative concept of the historical writer; the individual author’s approach to the reconstruction of historical narrative can be traced in the writer’s desire to realistically reveal the relationship of personality and society in the tragic 1930s; to analyze intentions of people and of the psychological states of the characters. Problems of a sociopolitical nature, actualized in the story, are filled with philosophical, axiological content, and lead to a multi-faceted understanding of the «man and history» problem.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
A. E. Kozlov

Purpose. The reputation of the satirical weekly Iskra is traditionally determined by the political context of the Russian Empire in 1860s. Despite the fact that in the first years of its existence, the publication attracted writers of various fractions, views, and convictions, Iskra was perceived as a radical magazine, “…another department of Sovremennik”. Moreover, Iskra’s defamations and attacks against provincial and capital officials, and writers have become an inte gral part of the everyday life of the 1860s. Individual articles and whole issues have been banned and censored, though this policy only promoted and strengthened the reputation of weekly. Later, reflecting the importance of the magazine, the Soviet literary criticism established a typological relationship between Iskra by Kurochkines brothers and the left-wing newspaper of the same name published by V. I. Lenin at the beginning of the 20th century. This article attempts to reinterpret Iskra, implying a “weakening” of the sociological and political aspects of interpretation in favor of the aesthetic ones.Results. The article put forward a hypothesis that publications such as Charivari, Punch, and Iskra can be considered from perspective of modern discursive practices: post-folklore (the phenomenon of variable text and multiple authorship), post-modernity (discrediting the classical heritage or its carnival rethinking) and post-irony (deconstruction of modern leaders of opinion, self-exposure). Based on the study of prosaic and poetic parodies and satire, graphic texts - cartoons and serials (comics), the author analyzes the specificity of the construction and presentation of Russian reality as an anti-world. The article contains fragments of prose and poetic feuilletons by D. D. Minaev, V. P. Burenin, and M. Stopanovsky, many of which are published for the first time.Conclusion. Iskra as a product of the polemical journalism of the Russian Empire in 1860s displayedan experience of a new aesthetics (a kind of anti-aesthetics), synthesizing schoolchildren (cartoons) and decadent subcultures (Baudelaire translations). Apparently, the 8000 subscribers included not only a radical and democratic reader but also a general audience, equally tired of the official tone of government periodicals and the moralizing of the progressive camp. Demonstrating Russian life as the so-called ‘antiworld’, Iskra proposed a version of “carnival liberation”, which was probably reflected in the poetics of many contemporaries: M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, N. S. Leskov, F. M. Dostoevsky. In this regard, the issue of post-folklore, post-modernism, post-truth, and post-irony on the pages of Iskra rather remained unresolved. However, the change in perspective, it seems to us, enables reinterpretation of the previously collected data, allowing us to give a new interpretation. 


Literary Fact ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 238-256
Author(s):  
Igor A. Vinogradov

For the first time, an analytical review of all, without exception, censorship stories of N.V. Gogol’s works is presented. An objective picture of Gogol's relationship with the censorship is being recreated. The findings of the study allow, with good reason, to judge about the interference of censors in the writer's works in a fundamentally different way, in comparison with the ideas offered by literary criticism of the previous period without solid evidence. Based on a thorough analysis, involving numerous archival sources, the common, stereotypical opinions about the extremely negative role of censorship in Gogol’s fate are being revised. The most significant negative result among all censorship interventions in Gogol's works was the activity of the censor of Westernizing views, opposed to the government, a professor at St. Petersburg University, A.V. Nikitenko. It is the numerous reductions of Nikitenko, И.А. Виноградов. Произведения Н .В. Гоголя и цензура 255 a friend of V.G. Belinsky, in Gogol's religious and patriotic book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” that the writer called “censorship murder”. No less significant was the intervention of the liberal censor in the texts of “Dead Souls”, “Theatrical Travel after the Presentation of a New Comedy” and other works of the writer. It is concluded that, with the exception of this “intrigue” against Gogol by the censor Nikitenko, on the whole Gogol's texts encountered relatively insignificant difficulties in censorship.


Kavkazologiya ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 154-165
Author(s):  
L.B. KHAVZHOKOVA ◽  

The article is devoted to the study of the life and literary heritage of one of the significant creative figures in the Kabardian literature of the 60s – 80s. Of the twentieth century, which determined the features of the formation and development trends of national prose of the specified period. The relevance of the stated topic is due to the fact that until now in the Adygeyan literary criticism there are no generalizing works on the study of milestones in the biography and a comprehensive analysis of the literary work of A. Naloev. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time a comprehensive substantive and structural-compositional analysis of the writer's works is carried out, starting from the first sketches in the form of miniatures and satirical and humorous stories, ending with larger genres – a story and a novel. The aim of the study is to recreate a complete biographical and creative picture of the life of a talented writer, philologist, educator, educator who raised a whole generation of artists and workers of culture and education. To achieve the goal, a number of tasks are solved, among the main ones – the study of the milestones of the biography of A. Naloev, the analysis of works, the consideration of the ideological and thematic orientation and the genre-style paradigm of the writer's work, determination of the role and place of his creative heritage in national literature and in general in cultural development Adyghe ethnos. The study used general scientific methods with an emphasis on the method of analysis, description and generalization. The results obtained have theoretical significance for further study of national literatures. They can become a significant practical help in writing various kinds of research papers, as well as in the preparation of special courses in universities and colleges.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-298
Author(s):  
Elena M. Shabshaevich

The article presents a focused look at the professional relations of the composer and pianist Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (1829—1894) with his main Russian publishers — V.V. Bessel and P.I. Jurgenson. The article is based on musical and historical research concerning the history of the Bessel and Jurgenson publishing houses, works on copyright, A.G. Rubinstein’s epistolary, and archival documents from the Russian National Museum of Music. For the first time in music science, there are revealed some pages of the history of personal and business contacts of the three named persons, primarily the conflicts related to the rights to publish the composer’s works in Russia. The first documented contract for the publications of A.G. Rubinstein was received by P.I. Jurgenson (for op. 82, 1868). However, the contract of A.G. Rubinstein with the trading house “Bessel and Co.”, concluded in 1871 (though Rubinstein’s first work had been published by Bessel two years earlier), was much more extensive and significant. Under this contract, it was supposed to publish more than fifty A.G. Rubinstein’s works of various genres, so in the 1870s, V.V. Bessel became the main Russian publisher of the composer. However, in 1879, A.G. Rubinstein unexpectedly changed his main publisher in Russia. This position was taken by P.I. Jurgenson, whose trading house also published an extensive list of Rubinstein’s compositions, as well as his literary works. This is evidenced by several notarized contracts, stored in the Russian National Museum of Music, between Rubinstein and “P.I. Jurgenson” company. Thus, the two leading Russian publishers of A.G. Rubinstein legally formalized their relations with the composer, which allows us to follow, in a reasoned and substantive way, the process of maturation of the institution of copyright for music publications in Russia in the last third of the 19th century.Using the example of A.G. Rubinstein, in comparison with the position of M.A. Balakirev, the article also raises the issue of granting copyright to a publisher not only in Russia, but also “forever and for all countries”. The comparative analysis of publications of the same composer by different publishing companies is also new to Russian musicology, this helps identify certain accents that publishers put in popularizing A.G. Rubinstein’s works. The publication of the composer’s works by various publishers also highlights new aspects in his creative process, in the history of the creation, receipt of the opus number, and the titles of some of his works.


Making Waves ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Mairéad Hanrahan

Hélène Cixous’s 1975 ‘Le Rire de la méduse’, later expanded into ‘Sorties’, represented a defining moment in both feminism and literary criticism/theory. When for the first time the French text was republished in 2010, Cixous speculated that the text was – disappointingly – still timely after all those years, contrary to her hopes at the original time of writing. This chapter explores Cixous’s text in relation to time in a number of different respects. It examines the significance of its very particular reception over time, and the implications that the signal failure to read it may have for both feminism and literary criticism/theory. But the chapter also considers the significance of Cixous’s work on time. The very notion of an anniversary, which simultaneously marks both a movement forward and a return to the past, is at odds with the linear, teleological idea of progress that remains dominant in discourses of political struggle. Yet the term ‘revolution’ indicates the importance of a cyclical movement of turning around or returning in effecting political change. This chapter therefore also studies the political dimension of Cixous’s approach to temporality.


Author(s):  
Margaret Dalivalle ◽  
Martin Kemp ◽  
Robert B. Simon

Chapter 14 surveys the return of royal goods to Charles II at the Restoration of the Crown in 1660 and identifies the Greenwich Salvator Mundi, disbursed and returned by Capt. John Stone in the royal inventory of c. 1666. The chapter reviews the individuals involved in the restitution and augmentation of the Royal Collection and identifies two inventories of the collection at the earliest state of assembly c. 1660–2. It identifies a previously unrecognized—and extensive—list of paintings reserved for the use of Oliver Cromwell. It considers the location and fate of the painting of Christ attributed to Leonardo that was disbursed to Edward Bass in December 1651. The chapter identifies, for the first time, documentation of the presence of the Windsor Volume in the collection of Charles II.


2021 ◽  
pp. 267-279
Author(s):  
E. V. Ushakova

The article reveals the specifics of the functioning of the phenomenon of duplicity  in  the novel by the English writer M. Spark “Aiding and Abetting” (2000). The scientific novelty lies in the fact that this work is viewed from this angle for the first time. An overview of a number of existing approaches to the phenomenon of duality in modern literary criticism is presented. The author analyzes pairs of the main characters of the novel, who are doubles, revealed in similar situations related to the themes of fraud and crime. It is shown that in the novel “Aiding and Abetting” the characters play the roles of both antagonists and carnival counterparts. Particular attention is paid to the  combination  inherent in M. Spark’s work in the works of satirical orientation and postmodern play, which is reflected in the change of the narrative perspective, ambiguity and uncertainty of the finale. The meaning of the title of the work is revealed in the context of the realization of the motive of duality, the main moral problems posed in the novel are revealed. The author comes to the conclusion that through the use of doubles, Spark describes the vices of society and the moral degradation of a person.


2021 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
В.С. ПУКИШ ◽  
И.С. ХУГАЕВ

В статье рассматривается роман основоположника «революционно-пролетарской словацкой литературы», «словацкого Горького» Петера Йилемницкого (1901–1949) «Компас в нас» (1937). Актуальность данного рассмотрения определяется уже тем, что в романе значительное место уделено советской (русской, киргизской) и кавказ­ской (осетинской, в хронотопе, заступающем советские рамки) теме, – и при этом произведение Йилемницкого до сих пор не было переведено на русский язык и осталось, в общем, вне поля зрения отечественного литературоведения и литературной кри­тики. Отдельные, связанные с осетинской темой, главы романа в переводе на осетин­ский язык, выполненном в свое время Хасаном Малиевым и Сафаром Хаблиевым, пу­бликовались в советское время в североосетинской периодической печати, и, поскольку одним из героев Йилемницкого выступает друг Петера Йилемницкого известный осе­тинский писатель Чермен Беджызаты (1898–1937) и действие первого плана происхо­дит именно в Южной Осетии, которую, в рамках сюжета, посещает повествователь, роман «Компас в нас» несколько раз упоминался в осетинском литературоведении. Одним из авторов данной статьи (В.С. Пукишем) роман Йилемницкого в «осетин­ской» части в последнее время переведен на русский язык с языка оригинала (редакто­ром перевода, необходимого в виду этнокультурной фактуры, выступил И.С. Хугаев); соответственно, здесь, помимо необходимой биографической и библиографической справки, вводятся в литературно-критический оборот обстоятельства творческой истории романа «Компас в нас», его основные идеи и образы, а также его оценки в словацком литературном процессе; впервые на основе оригинального текста тракту­ется архитектоника, образная система, идеология, общие изобразительные приемы и идейно-эмоциональная тенденция текста Петера Йилемницкого. The article examines the novel Kompas v nás (Compass Inside Us) by Peter Jilemnický (1901–1949), the founder of “revolutionary proletarian Slovak literature,” and “the Slovak Gorki.” The topicality of this review can be proved by the fact that the novel devotes much attention to the Soviet (Russian, Kyrgyz) and the Caucasian (Ossetian – in the space-time going beyond the Soviet period) themes – however, by now it has not been translated into Russian and thus it has remained mostly out of the eye of contemporary Russian literary criticism. At the same time, the Ossetia-related chapters of the novel translated into Ossetian by Khasan Maliev and Safar Khabliev, were published in the North Ossetian press, and due to the fact that one of the central characters of the novel is Chermen Bedzhyzaty (1898–1937), a known Ossetian writer and a friend of Peter Jilemnický, and that the foreground of the story takes place in South Ossetia visited by the narrator, Compass Inside Us has more than once been mentioned by Ossetian literary critics. One of the authors of this article (V. Pukish) recently translated the ‘Ossetian’ part of the novel from Slovak into Russian (I. Khugaev edited the translated text as required by the ehtnocultural texture); this is why, the circumstances of creative history of the novel, its main ideas and images, and the assessments given to it by Slovak literary critics are hereby introduced into the scientific discourse in addition to the required biographical and bibliographical references. Based on the original text of the novel, the authors of this article are for the first time discussing the architectonics, imagery, ideology, general representational devices, and ideological and emotional trends of the text by Peter Jilemnický.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document