Parnicki a Rosja. Rekonesans

The article considers issue of the connections between Teodor Parnicki, the Polish author of historical novels, and Russia. His attitude has its origins in biographical experiences. Knowledge of Russian culture is evident especially in the early work of Parnicki, and above all – in literary criticism of the interwar period. Careful reading shows that the sketches and reviews are a conservative critical project, the subject of which is Soviet social and cultural policy and communism in general. This article also complements the current state of research (who did not address this issue), while being a contribution to further research.

The poetics of historical novels of B. Rafikov

Аннотация. В современных литературоведческих исследованиях насущная необходимость анализа и постижения литературного процесса ХХ столетия, который всецело завершился, неопровержимо превратилась в очевидность. Актуальность исследования определяется особым качественным подъемом жанра романа в башкирской литературе. Безусловно, необходимость исследования поэтики башкирского романа, анализ его художественно-эстетической, духовно-нравственной, патриотической и др. ценностей вызвана современной реальностью. В процессе развития национальных литератур Российской Федерации вызывает теоретический интерес исследование поэтики и эволюции башкирской прозы с точки зрения типологии. Изучение в эстетическом аспекте исторических путей развития башкирской литературы, относящейся к тюркоязычным литературам, в частности прозы, ориентируясь не только на русско-европейские традиции, но и не упуская из виду восточные традиции, синтез поэтики фольклора, национальную специфику, генетические корни, обеспечивает актуальность данной работы. Актуальность научной работы, прежде всего, обусловлена выявлением насущных проблем, позиционированием идей, принципов, точек зрений, убеждений и др., составляющих неразрывный литературный процесс. Исторический роман последних двух десятилетий обнаруживает много общего с произведениями на современную тему в стилевых тенденциях развития, принципах, приемах и средствах типизации характера. В то же время анализ многогранного художественного мира исторического романа является фактом, способствующим воссозданию картины современной литературы в ее единстве. Автор, придерживаясь цели и задач исследования, дает представление о степени изученности обозначенной проблематики, формулирует и подробно рассматривает необходимые направления исследовательской работы. Целью данной статьи является исследование проблем поэтики исторических романов Б. Рафикова, что приводит к созданию более полной картины современной башкирской прозы в русле выявления основных ее стилевых направлений. В соответствии с поставленной целью закономерно решение следующих конкретных задач: исследование природы (эпической, риторической, художественно-смысловой и т. д.) исторического романа и анализ творческого мастерства создателя художественного произведения. В статье применяется метод библиографического, биографического, мотивного, сюжетного анализа; сравнительно-типологического и сравнительно-исторического литературоведения. Результатом работы выступает, в первую очередь, впервые проведенное всестороннее исследование и совокупный анализ исторического романа на принципе формирования поэтики башкирского романа. Намечается совершенно иной подход в изучении поэтики современного башкирского романа и выявляются новые направления, перспективы развития жанра и национальной литературы ХХI столетия.

Literature and History: Study of Nigerian Indigenous Historical Novels

The assumption that history posits itself as a fact, while literature is to be taken as an artistic form, only for entertainment (i.e., the difference between truth and falsehood, reality and illusion) has long been debated by formalists and soclologlsts of literature. In Yoruba society, literature and history are im­portant in explaining the fullness of life and the world around us. It is against this background that this paper examines the relationship between literature and history and how Yoruba novelists use their works as vehicles for the repre­sentation of history. We adopt the theory of New Historicism to analyze T.A.A. Ladele's lgbi Aye n yi and Olu Owolabi's Ote Nibo. Some of the findings reveal that: both Yoruba literature and history are closely related, they are both based on Yoruba experience and Yoruba existence either in the past or present; while Ladele Interprets the history of the dignity and royal glamour of the Yoruba oba in the precolonial era as a form of domination which is often achieved through culturally-orchestrated consent rather than force; Owolabi represents the hlstory of party politics in Yoruba society as fraudulent, deceltful, full of bitterness and violence. The paper concludes that both novelists are subjective in their representation of Yoruba history, but they successfully establfsh the fact that the novel is a repository of history; however, such history is not a mere chronlcle of facts and events, but rather a complex description of human reality and a challenge to the preconceived notions of the societies from which they emerged.

Intelligible History, Negated Subjects: The Pressures of Intimacy in Michael Crummey's and Michael Winter's Historical Novels

This article explores the implications of Lauren Berlant’s essay “Trauma and Ineloquence” (2001) regarding the therapeutic effects of narrative, also addressing the critical work of other theorists that have tackled the question of the artificiality of personal and historical narratives. By connecting Berlant’s insights into the notion of intelligibility with those of Roland Barthes, of testimony theorists and of other critics on ineloquence, my analysis aims to throw light on two historical novels that are articulated through intimate events that prevent certain speakers (Berlant’s negated subjects) from producing testimony and, therefore, participating in mainstream narratives and accessing justice. The novels River Thieves (2001) by Michael Crummey and The Big Why (2004) by Michael Winter hold the past as a scandal where carnal entanglements degrade the epic sweep of the events and show the disruptive effects of non-normative knowledges. Intimacy, thus defined as a lawless and shameful element in society, intersects with the economic and sexual pressures imported into the colonies by the empire (Povinelli 2006; Stoler 2006a). In this context, Newfoundland, in Canada, represents a colony where the ethics of European and American civilization are called into question.

Northern Cheyenne Exodus and Negroes Lynching: Historical Novels of Howard Fast in the USSR

The article deals with the historical novels reception of Howard Fast (a writer who was extremely popular in the 1950s, though he is almost forgotten now) in the Soviet Union. Once a USA Communist Party member loyal to the USSR, he became a fierce opponent of Soviet communism. The analysis of the American context uncovers the reasons why the author of left-wing beliefs turned to the genre of a historical novel and peculiarities of the literary market he faced. A close study of Soviet reviews demonstrates that the novels The Last Frontier and The Freedom Road were perceived by Soviet literary critics as Fasts protest against racial discrimination and growing right-wing sentiment. These problems were a matter of urgency against the background of the McCarthy campaign, which Fast fell victim to in 1947. His novel The Freedom Road was put on the stage in Moscow theaters. According to Soviet reviewers, the absence of decadent primitivism set Fast apart from other once-friendly Soviet writers such as Richard Wright and Claude McKay. Within this tradition of exoticism criticism, dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, novels about distant lands were highly appreciated only when ethnographic descriptions were used for consistent social criticism. Being a committed supporter of the concept art as a weapon developed in the Soviet Union, Fast perceived exaggerated exoticism, top-heavy descriptions of historical novels as a sign of escapist literature that ignores the method of dialectical materialism.

RAILWAYS IN LITHUANIA: FROM TSARIST RUSSIA TO RAIL BALTICA

Lithuania is a transit country. It is a small but significant territory between East and West. This fact is substantiated by the history of the country railways, which started when Tsarist Russia launched the construction of the railway between Saint-Petersburg and Warsaw. There is not much research into the history of railways in Russia, also in Lithuania. Besides, not all available information is reliable due to the nihilistic attitudes towards Tsarism of that time. Only some of the railways in the former Soviet Union were written and talked about. The history of the Lithuania railway is not an exception. Different written sources provide a variety of dates for the first railway to be built in Lithuania. They mirror varied events in the history of Lithuanian railways, thus all of them must be taken into consideration. The article presents the evolution of Lithuanian railway transport from Tsarist Russia to Rail Baltica, which is the European railway project currently implemented in Lithuania. The article discusses the world’s first railways including the ones in Tsarist Russia when the history of Lithuanian railways started. The article also considers the building of the first railway in Lithuania, construction of railway stations, setting the transportation tariffs, selection of railway employees. The author of the article employs historical and online resources as well as a long-standing personal experience in railway transport. The research into Tsar Family’s diaries and historical novels makes it possible to disclose the facts that are not widely known. The author considers the future of Lithuania with reference to the construction of the European railway Rail Baltica. The article would be useful for the readers who are interested in the historical development and future of Lithuanian railways.

László Krasznahorkai's War and war as an apocalyptic metahistorical novel

This paper looks at a novel by László Krasznahorkai in the context of the narrative turn in history, which also stimulated a revaluation of the fictional historical narrative. War and War was one of a series of Hungarian historical novels, or mixed novel formations with a historical theme, published at the turn of the millennium, whose primary aim was not to recount a self-assured historical tale but rather to highlight, via the story, the models/schemas/shifts/blank spaces in our present-day comprehension of the past. This paper interprets the novel with reference to historic-philosophical conceptions (Löwith, Koselleck), tracks its references to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and argues that it transforms the teleological idea of the historical process into an apocalyptic model of history.

Neo-Victorian felony – Crime narratives in Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project and Ian McGuire’s The North Water

The neo-Victorian novel has been one of the most significant branches of contemporary British historical fiction for the past three decades. Thanks to works like A. S. Byatt’s Possession, Sarah Waters’ trilogy Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith and Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, the genre has gained not only considerable popularity among readers, but also almost a canonical literary status. Although recent neo-Victorian fiction has been trying to find some new ways in which the genre could avoid stereotypical narratives, it still retains its most determining idiosyncrasies. One of them is an interest in the undersides of Victorian society, including the themes of violence and criminality, which is why these novels often resort to the genre of crime and detective fiction. This is also the case of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project (2015) and Ian McGuire’s The North Water (2016), both historical novels set in Victorian Britain which were, respectively, shortlisted and longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. This paper attempts to show the different manners in which these two novels employ various forms of crime narratives so as to achieve their goal of presenting convincing and seemingly authentic insights into the more obscure aspects of the Victorian era.

Medievalism Re-oriented

This chapter examines interfaith encounter and conflict in the Islam Quintet, a suite of historical novels written between 1992 and 2010 by British-Pakistani author and commentator Tariq Ali. It explores the novels’ engagement with ‘Clash of Civilisations’ ideologies and with neocolonial politics, particularly in the three novels that are set in medieval Islamicate contexts shaped by interfaith and intercultural encounters: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, set in fifteenth-century al-Andalus, A Sultan in Palermo, set in twelfth-century Sicily, and The Book of Saladin, set in Crusade-era Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. The chapter argues that the novels develop a tension between convivencia, interfaith cohabitation achieved under Arab governance, and occupation, a hostile monocultural regime imposed under Christian rule. The chapter does not recuperate the Islamicate world into Western chronologies; rather, it complicates Western understandings of ‘the medieval’ by exploring how these novels highlight the linked destinies of Western and Islamic societies.