MIKHAIL FREIDENBERG AND HIS FAMILY: THE ODESSA TRACE IN RUSSIAN CULTURE

Research traditions that have developed in relation to certain cultural phenomena are often limited by the framework of national cultures, the specifics of the studied personality and its creative activity. At the same time, the cultural and social demands underlying these studies do not actually imply the conversion of the identified cultural values from one national (cultural) tradition to another. Thus, it is unlikely that representatives of border territories, as well as territories that had actual ex-territoriality and freedom to choose cultural identification, can give in to an unambiguous definition of cultural identity. Odessa was good example of it. Here the marginality of the frontier cultural zone created its own unique cultural topos, with its “mixed” identity, for which the territorial, ethnic, cultural and linguistic boundaries were not absolute, were mobile, created conditions for the formation of seemingly contradictory ideas about the “eastern West”, about “imperial Jewishness”, “Jewish Russianity”, etc. For the Jewish citizen of Odessa, the national (Jewish) or imperial (Russian) component played a great role. The internal contradictions that exist in these identification models were either resolved in favor of one of the models, or removed due to the local identification model provided by the immediate environment, which we called the environment. In this article, we would like to show this environmental influence through the personality of Mikhail Filippovich Freidenberg, who is known to historians of science and technology as an inventor, but little known to literary historician (mainly as the father of Olga Mikhailovna Freidenberg and the uncle of Boris Leonidovich Pasternak). In our opinion, the description of the artistic and journalistic, as well as satirical works of Mikhail Freidenberg deserves attention. With his name, the intellectual environment of Odessa at the end of the XIX century takes on a holistic appearance, at the same time exposing the problem of “intellectual crowding” of the imperial province. The phenomenon of the environment is conceptualized by the example of the family of Mikhail Freidenberg and relations with relatives, as well as by describing the influence of this environment on Russian culture in the late XIX – first half of the XX century through the formation of the personalities of Olga Freidenberg and Boris Pasternak. It is important to overcome disciplinary boundaries and show how the environment promotes the realization of creative opportunities and how it sets these opportunities. We do it based on the available biographical data, memoirs, diaries and other documents.

PARGOD (WORLD CURTAIN) AND THE NOVEL «DOCTOR ZHIVAGO» BY BORIS PASTERNAK

Boris Pasternak argued that no one understood that in his main novel a certain philosophy was set forth, the essence of which was that the true world was closed to us by a swaying curtain. Other poets clearly saw the same images of the world fabric, woven from threads, which closes true being from us. There is a similar superstring theory in modern physics. The search for this idea in an explicit form in the writer’s works ended in a negative result. Then the subject of analysis was literary criticism, which dealt with the curtain, fabric and threads mentioned in the novel or told about its cryptosemantics. The metaphorical change in the properties of things and the blurring of their boundaries was considered a manifestation of their unity in the other world. Critics tried to consider the idea of ??Pasternak in the contest of the Plato“s cave as a symbol of the division of the world into the illusory and true ones, etc. However, none of the critics could find in the novel the hidden content the novel“s author spoke about. Instead, critics saw in the novel such meanings and images that were completely absent in it. The article concludes that if the hidden meaning does exist in the novel, it is not explicated in any way. At the same time, it may be assumed that the idea of ??the threads of the world came to Pasternak, as it was with other poets, in the his poiesis insight of clairvoyance. At the same time, the article concluded that in Pasternak”s case the real, material world as a curtain-world disappears by itself due to the destructive action of the revolution. In addition to the world of things, in the war, from the lack of food, frosts and epidemics, the heroes of the novel and Zhivago himself die. The main character from «Zhivago» (Аlive) gradually turned into the “Mertvago” (Unalive), what allows Me author to consider the novel a guilty verdict of social revolution. Of course, for the apologists of the «Russian World» it would be tempting to interpret the fall of the curtain (the disappearance of the world of things) as opening to Russians by catharsis the true Divine World, but when noble people disappeared and Ham began to rule everywhere, in Russia there was no one who would and could cognize this Divine World.

“Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak in Italian criticism of the 1950s: a discussion in the magazine “Il Ponte”

the article will focus on the history of the first publication of the novel “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, on its influence on the formation of opinion about Boris Pasternak as a truly major prose writer, as well as on the potential role in the further receipt of the Nobel Prize by the author in 1958. As one knows, the first publication took place in Italy. It is from Italian cultural figures Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (the first publisher of the novel) and Pietro Antonio Zveteremich (its translator) it depended on how the novel would be received abroad, where Boris Pasternak had not been well-known by the late 1957 – the Swedish Academy initially refused to nominate the writer as a Nobel laureate due to insufficient fame in wide literary circles. After the publication of “Doctor Zhivago”, it was essential to determine what the content of the first reviews of this work would be. The paper reviews the first reviews of the novel in the Italian press, in particular, the discussion that unfolded in the independent monthly magazine “Il Ponte”. Such well-known cultural figures in Italian literary circles as Guglielmo Petroni, Carlo Cassola, and Manlio Cancogni spoke out. Their opinions were not ignored, they were accepted by the general public.

Symbolics of the book and the space of cultural memory in the «final book» of Boris Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”

This article examines one of the symbolic components of the «objective world» of the novel about the writer – the image of the «book». It is noted that its use in the poetics of «Doctor Zhivago» is multifunctional. In addition to the characteristics of the artistic space, the «book» acts as a «finished object» that implements «universal and all-encompassing semantic segments» in the plot associated with cultural memory, the integrity of life and the world order. Special attention is paid to the content of the genre designation of «final book», which is applied to a number of «polymorphic» novels of the late 19th – 20th centuries and is considered in the context of «genre generalisations» in literature. The meaning of lexical components used within this genre designation is clarified. The occasional meaning «target», contained in the word «final», allows one to see in the intense self-reflection of the writer, which has a significant impact on the creative process, aspiration to cognise the «hidden essence» of things. The appeal to the goals inherent in the «ontological construction» of beings is defined in the philosophical tradition as «phenomenological reduction» (EGA Husserl), «transcending the spirit beyond its limits» (RM Garrigou-Lagrange). These processes are responsible for the retardation of the phase of the formation of the concept of the work – a phenomenon that has not yet been fully explained.

Foreword by Boris Pasternak to Maria Stuart by Frederick Schiller

The article is an editorial preparation of Boris Pasternak’s foreword written to the Frederick Schiller’s drama Maria Stuart, which he translated. Circumstances have been described which meant that the text was not fi nally included in the edition. The editorial history of the Polish translation of the foreword by Seweryn Pollak is also presented. In his sketch Pasternak shows the background of Schiller’s work, presents the tragic biography of Maria Stuart and describes the way the characters in the drama are created.

O ano de 1993 ou o encontro dos tempos, dentro e fora da revolução

O ano de 1993 é sempre tratado à parte na literatura de José Saramago ou como testamento entre dois instantes de organização de sua dicção poética. Este texto repassa essa determinante ressaltando aspectos temáticos que seriam parte da obra anterior e posterior ao livro de 1975. Dentre eles, privilegia o tema da revolução, demonstrado como um instante de transformação coletiva capaz de romper com o tempo de falibilidade dos processos civilizatórios. Esta matéria encontra amparo na literatura do próprio escritor, no contexto de referência da obra e no estreito diálogo estabelecido com outras criações literárias – especificamente o conjunto de poemas O ano de 1905, de Boris Pasternak, com o qual 1993 parece estimular laços de mais variada ordem. Isso significa que a leitura aqui proposta se sustenta pelo tratamento interpretativo, crítico e analítico-comparativo. Seu alcance finda por materializar os traços compositivos de um livro que é simultaneamente produto contrário às ideologias de um tempo escuro da história e parábola sobre nossa múltipla natureza, situando-se no intervalo das dicotomias que a define, na sua parcela sensível e primitiva que aspira à liberdade e se eleva contra os modelos de dominação estabelecidos pela própria força humana.

The North-South Civilizational Divide in Osip Mandelstam’s Philosophical and Literary Works

The article discusses the problem of cultural and civilizational self-identification in the works of Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam. According to the family legend, the Mandelstam family descended from Spanish Jews who fled from Spanish kings’ persecution, and then moved, in search of better life, further and further to the north of Europe, until they finally settled in the Russian Empire. In our view, young Osip Mandelstam was formed as a poet in the traditions of the literature of the “Russian North,” derived from Gavriil Derzhavin, Prince Peter Vyazemsky, Anton Delvig, and Alexander Pushkin. Mandelstam was a direct literary follower of the Russian symbolist poet of Swedish origin, I.I. Oreus (who published under the pseudonym of “Ivan Konevskoy”). The name of Oreus-Konevskoy, his magical poetic style, the circumstances of his death, and finally, his romantic grave on the steep bank of the Latvian river Aa (Gauja) – became truly iconic phenomena of the Russian Silver Age. Oreus-Konevskoy had a great influence not only on young Mandelstam’s verse (some of his famous poems are direct “literary duels” with the Teacher) but also on Alexander Blok, Valery Bryusov, and early Boris Pasternak. The author of the article analyzes how in the first post-revolutionary years Osip Mandelstam tried to become one of the theorists of the Soviet “Northern” literature. In the author’s view, when the repressive nature of the new regime became obvious and the “NorthernPetersburgian” Russia showed its totalitarian-Bolshevik appearance, there started a radical turn in Mandelstam’s self-consciousness, which led to an attempt to form a new personal identity, as a person belonging to the “cultural South,” who tragically found himself in the “barbaric North.”

OPTION OF OVERCOMING SYMBOLISM IN THE EARLY WORKS OF BORIS PASTERNAK

The article presents a comparative analysis of Annensky's poem “Black Spring” and Pasternak's poem “February”; it helps to show how symbolist attitude is overcome by recoding “set of images” of the first text in the second text. First, the topic of “transition” that is important for Pasternak is developed. The “transition” is rebirth of a person into a poet by writing poetry. Watching of the state of the world (especially nature) becomes important, the world is associated with the feelings and sensations of the poet, the process of rebirth is inscribed in the calendar cycle. Then the artistic systems of Pasternak and Annensky are compared. A prerequisite for this is the image of the “black spring” found in Pasternak's text and which is a direct reference to Annensky's text. We find the philosophical polemic of the two authors when we are comparing the two poems. If there is no creation in Annensky's world, all of images are endowed with the semantics of death, then Pasternak's world is formed and charged with poetry that is born in a continuous life cycle. In Pasternak's poetic system, Annensky's images are rebuilt and endowed with the semantics of birth, thereby expressing the author's life-affirming attitude. The poem "February" shows the overcoming of the drama of non-incarnation faced by the second generation Symbolists.