Translating the transition: the translator-detective in Post-Soviet fiction

This article explores the ways in which the figure of the translator-detective in contemporary Russian literature functions to express and neutralize a range of fears and anxieties engendered by the post-Soviet transition. Tracing the roots of the motif of the translator in Russian literature back to F. M. Dostoevsky ’s Crime and Punishment, the paper then examines the translator-hero in the detective fiction of the best-selling contemporary authors Aleksandra Marinina, Boris Akunin, Dar’ia Dontsova, and Polina Dashkova. Representatives of the embattled Russian intelligentsia, their translator-detectives embody resistance to mindless cultural borrowing from the West.

RUSSIA, THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE AND THE STATE: F. M. DOSTOEVSKY'S VISION

В статье анализируется социально-исторические воззрения Ф. М. Достоевского. Целью работы является исследование писателем в его произведениях социальных отношений российского общества середины - второй половины XIX столетия: отношения между классами и социальными группами, социальной справедливости, свободы, богатства-бедности, положения русского народа. Авторы приходят к выводу, что писатель стремился изобразить русский народ единым, примирить классовые, сословные противоречия, представить подобное состояние русского общества как особый исторический путь России. Исследовав основные произведения Ф.М. Достоевского, авторы приходят к выводу, что, будучи писателем-реалистом, стремившимся передать правду жизни русского народа, писатель постоянно наталкивался на вопиющее несоответствие собственной доктрины реальным картинам российской действительности. Ф.М. Достоевский возлагал вину за создавшееся положение на русскую интеллигенцию. The article analyzes the socio-historical views of F. M. Dostoevsky in his multifaceted work. The social and historical views of the thinker include a deep study of the social relations of Russian society in the mid-second half of the XIX century: the relations between classes and social groups, social justice, freedom, wealth-poverty, the situation of the Russian people. Russian Russian writers have come to the conclusion that the writer sought to portray the Russian people as one, to reconcile class and class contradictions, to present such a state of Russian society as a special historical path of Russia. However, as a realist writer who sought to draw the truth of the life of the Russian people, the writer constantly came across a blatant discrepancy between his own doctrine and the real pictures of Russian reality. Dostoevsky blamed the situation on the Russian intelligentsia.

Read Gleb Pavlovsky. The Ideology of the “Weak”

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RESEARCH PROBLEMS IN SCIENTIFIC AND PEDAGOGICAL LITERATURE OF EDUCATION IN HEROIC EPOSES

Outstanding heroic epics created by the Azerbaijani people (Kitabi-Dede Gorgud, Koroglu, Gara Malik, Gachag Nabi, Gachag Kerem, Gara Tanryverdi, Samed bey, Gandal Nagi, etc.), being the totality of education, morality, spirituality, are of particular value. The representations that have been formed over millennia, national-spiritual values with all aspects were reflected in the dastans, making up the main line. The interest shown since the beginning of the nineteenth century led to the analysis of these epics at various levels. The interest of representatives of the Azerbaijani, Turkish, European, Russian intelligentsia in the heroic epics was also caused by the content of the ethnocultural system. Description of colorful elements in episodes, events, motives of dastans, starting with the formation of personality and ending with patriotic education, directly reveals the essence of the existing educational system and requires extensive research. From the point of view of clarifying the historical and cultural current and its functional essence, the rules of society in the field of education, such models created by the European peoples of the majestic epics as "Beowulf", "Saga of Cuchulainn", "Song of Side", "Tristan and Isolde", "The Great Saga", "Little Saga". Azerbaijani heroic dastans were also studied by prominent representatives of the European scientific and cultural environment of the 19th century, such as F. Dietz, T. Nyoldeke, J. Sand, V.V. Bartold, I. Chopin, A. Khodzko, who singled out education, national, spiritual, moral values of the Azerbaijani people.

Jacob Gordin and the Anti-Spinozist Legacy of Hermann Cohen in France

Hermann Cohen is often described as the last in a line of German idealist, or Jewish rationalist, thinkers. This article, instead, takes Cohen as a point of departure, tracing his distinct form of anti-Spinozism which was transmitted to France by the Russian émigré philosopher of religion Jacob Gordin. It considers the engagements by Cohen, Leo Strauss, and Gordin with Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise, and examines the role an essay by Gordin played in bringing Cohen's view to francophone Jewish audiences and in defending Cohen's reading of Spinoza against Strauss's critique. The article then treats the postwar redeployments of Gordin's essay by Emmanuel Levinas and the historian of anti-Semitism Léon Poliakov against the Zionist and Spinozist views promoted by David Ben-Gurion. Attention to the overlooked centrality of Gordin demonstrates the importance of Russian intelligentsia as carriers of Cohen's legacy, highlights the presence of Cohen's anti-Spinozist views in postwar French and French Jewish thought, and introduces another site within the reception history of Spinoza in the twentieth century.

Why did D.S. Merezhkovsky change the title of the book “Gogol and the Devil”?

For the first time, this article considers the reasons behind the title changes of D. Merezhkovsky’s book “Gogol and the Devil” (1906) in light of its concept, discussions of it in the Religious-Philosophical Meetings and in periodicals. Having chosen “Gogol and Fr. Matvey” as the topic to present in the meetings, D. Merezhkovsky emphasized the causes of the writer’s death and interpreted it as a victory of “black” monasticism and bodiless spirituality over artistic inspiration and the “holy flesh”. The semantically provocative title of the book, which was designed by N. Feofilaktov, helped promote the edition of the “Skorpion” publishing house, yet it turned out narrower than the whole book’s scope, only covering the contents of its first part, “Works”. This is evidenced by the frequencies of the occurrences of “devil” and its synonyms and their uneven distribution across the text of the book. By disposing of “Gogol and the Devil”, D. Merezhkovsky obtained greater freedom to pose the problem of “new religious consciousness”, which he examined alongside the history of Russian literature and the religiosity of Russian intelligentsia. The final title of the book, “Gogol. Works, life and religion”, corresponds to its content and composition, and also places it on a par with large-scale studies, such as D. Merezhkovsky’s book “L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky”.

Dostoiévski – Niilismo, Arte e Cristianismo

In this paper, the religious question in Dostoevsky's work will be addressed taking two different aspects into consideration. Firstly, the religious context of Russian Orthodoxy, as well as the space occupied by the Orthodox tradition in the Russian intelligentsia during the 19th century. It is in this context that the thought of Vladimir Soloviev are found. He was the one responsible for the first theological reading of Dostoevsky's works under the point of view of Orthodoxy and for the development of a sophisticated interweaving of religion and aesthetics. Secondly, there is an effort for displacing the author from the theological tradition of Orthodoxy and also an attempt to position Dostoevsky’s religious thought in the outlook of Modern Nihilism. The paper argues that nihilism enables the birth of a religious vocabulary which is not conditioned by the traditional theological principles commonly linked to Dostoevsky’s aesthetic and religious universe. Thus, we understand that it is on the horizon of nihilism and not within the frameworks of a traditional religion that Dostoevsky's Christianity must be interpreted.

APOLLO IN AN AIRPLANE. MODERNIZATION OF ANTIQUITY IN RUSSIAN NIETZSCHEISM

В статье рассматриваются особенности рецепции и бытования в среде российской интеллигенции эпохи Серебряного века знаменитой ницшевской антитезы «аполлоническое и дионисийское». Оценивается роль концепции Ницше в возрождении в России интереса к самой Античности. Отмечается, что, в отличие от Запада, рассматривавшего тезис о противоположении аполлонического и дионисийского начал в культуре, прежде всего, как метафоры, в России он был воспринят как реальное положение дел в греческой культуре или даже как некое мистическое откровение. Автор демонстрирует модернизационный характер концепции Ницше и ее изводов в русском ницшеанстве, где чрезвычайно популярной становится идея возрождения античных идеалов, анализирует политические проекции этой идеи в творчестве представителей различных направлений общественной мысли. The article examines the peculiarities of perception and existence among the Russian intelligentsia of the Silver Age of the famous Nietzschean antithesis «Apollonian and Dionysian». The role of Nietzsche's concept in the revival of Russian interest in antiquity is evaluated. It is noted that, unlike in the West, where thesis of the opposition of Apollonian and Dionysian principles in culture as was considered primarily a metaphor, in Russia it was perceived as a real state of affairs in Greek culture or even as a kind of mystical revelation. The author demonstrates the modernizing nature of Nietzsche's concept and its derivations in Russian Nietzscheism, when the idea of the revival of ancient ideals becomes extremely popular. He also analyzes the political projections of this idea in the works of representatives of various directions of social thought.

Life and Death Ethoses in the Short Story The Mystery of Foreseen Death by Aleksandr Grin: Imaginative Apophatic Reality

The paper is dedicated to the issue of the apophatic component of artistic culture associated with Thanatos that is developed in the literature oeuvre of Aleksandr Grin. Setting Grin’s short story The Mystery of Foreseen Death as the research object, this texts seeks to provide insight into the image of death and the examination of its spiritual and material manifestations that reflected the logocentric approach that was then popular among the Russian thinkers. To pursue this aim, the methodology of this study should allow identifying the ontological perspective of Grin’s story. Thus, the methodological foundations embrace the onto-hermeneutic approach to the analysis of literary work. In revealing the ontological dimension of the story much attention is paid to the ethos of life and death, the protagonist’s artistic imaginative experience of reality. In the story under study death is ambivalent: it is bodily, anthropological, as indicated by the repetitive image of neck on the execution block. At the same time, it is apophatic, as indicated by the darkened end of the story, the bewilderment of skeptical scientists that arose because of the main event of the story, namely the protagonist’s execution. In this regard, it appears to be effective to consider the anthroposophical thought of Rudolf Steiner that was absorbed by a large part of Russian intelligentsia at the beginning of the 20th century. This doctrine stresses the reflections on a person’s experience of death in reality. The imaginative aspect of anthroposophism was developed by Grin’s close friend, a neighbor in Crimean Cimmeria, Maximilian Voloshin, a disciple of the teachings of Steiner. The conclusions that can be drawn from the study are as follows: Grin’s story presents a detailed imaginative death experience, which makes it possible to raise the issue of it being part of the broader anthroposophical teaching. The Mystery of Foreseen Death indirectly expresses the Steinerian ideas and at the same time it fits into the framework of the Russian apophatic artistic tradition. The article also raises the issue of the apophatic component of Russian artistic culture, the thanatological experience of which can help in overcoming crisis situations nowadays. The findings of the research, in this way, can have an effect on better understanding in several fields: in literature studies (philology), in the history of Russian literature, in cultural studies and in philosophy.