CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN YU. G. OKSMAN AND N. K. GUDZIJ (1930–1965) (Final Part)

The publication introduces the scholarly community to a long-term correspondence between the two literary historians and textual experts, Yu. G. Oksman and N. K. Gudzij (currently stored at RGALI and Manuscript Department, Russian State Library). The correspondence refl ects the diversity and similarity of the research interests of the two correspondents, whose epistolary dialogue refl ected the life of the Soviet society, the challenges faced by the Russian philological scholarship of the second third of the 20th century in many of its tragic episodes, and most importantly, the fates of the participants of this dialogue.

TRAGEDY OF EXISTENCE AND SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL. "THE LITTLE TRAGEDIES" AND "BELKIN’S TALES"

The Little Tragedies and Belkin’s Tales were written at the same time. In the former, Pushkin examines the main, eternal, and insoluble confl icts of existence: love and death, life and death, inspiration and hard work, youth and old age. These confl icts are tragic, and are in principle insoluble, for humanity. Their collision constitutes the very essence of human life and of human civilization. But — according to Pushkin — what is insoluble for humanity as a whole might be, at least partly, resolved by way of a compromise, when it comes to individual human lives. This is what Belkin’s Tales are about.

«THE HISTORY OF THE SITE»: FOLK STORYLINES AND MOTIVES IN THE NARRATIVES ABOUT ANOUFRIEVSKY SKETE ON THE WINTER COAST OF THE WHITE SEA

This article is based on the fi eld work data of Pushkin House related to the history of the Anoufrievsky Skete that existed at the Winter Coast of the White Sea in the 18th — early 20th centuries. Specific storylines and motives are discussed, selected by the authors from the body of the recorded narratives concerning the Skete. The locals reproduce the historical narratives, including the legendary tales about the fi rst settlers, the life of the Skete community, the Old Believers’ wealth, recombining the history of the site in various ways; eschatological motives are superimposed on the speculations concerning the decline of the Pomor villages.

WHAT IS POETRY? OBSERVATIONS ON THE TOPIC «I. A. BUNIN AND E. A. BARATYNSKY»

The article outlines the parallels between the artistic systems of Ivan Bunin and Evgenii Baratynsky. They shared the same view concerning their role in the literary world, the connections between creativity and reminiscences, the way they treated their familial memory as a guarantor of immortality, their awareness of the unbreakable link between the contrasting states of soul and existence. Baratynsky’s influence grew after Bunin’s departure from Russia: only once he had found support in the elegiac tradition, Bunin managed to recreate both his own artistic world and the fi gurative system of his art. The stories Bunin wrote in the fi rst half of the 1920s absorbed a significant body of motifs and direct quotes from Baratynsky’s poetry. The latter’s Fragments from the Poem: Recollections (1819) can be read as a meta-description of the world of Bunin’s émigré years.

НА РАСПУТЬЕ

The article, based on a white paper autograph kept at the Amherst Center for Russian Culture, presents A. M. Remizov’s short story At the Crossroads, the source of which is the texts from S. P. Remizova-Dovgello’s early memoirs.

THE PROJECT OF THE INTERNET PORTAL DOSTOEVSKY AND THE WORLD: ON THE PROBLEM OF RECEPTION OF THE WRITER’S BIOGRAPHY AND WORK IN THE MODERN WORLD

The article deals with the new project — the Internet portal Dostoevsky and the World, launched by the Pushkin House for the 200th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The work offers the basic information on the project. The Internet resource that would host the most representative examples of the reception of Dostoevsky’s personality and work in various epochs and in various countries is a great way to familiarize the modern reader with the wide scope of interest in Dostoevsky in the past and present. The project focuses on the non-academic reception, philosophical and aesthetic interpretations, the attitudes of public fi gures, writers, stage and movie directors, publicists, etc. The collection of case studies of Dostoevsky’s reception by today’s cultural fi gures, as well as the publication of the previously unknown writer-related sources of the past years, are of particular importance.

WE NEED TO LET THE TIME TAKE ITS COURSE: K. N. LEONTIEV AND E.-M. DE VOGÜÉ

In the early 1870s, in Constantinople, K. N. Leontiev met a young French diplomat and writer, Viscount E.-M. de Vogüé. The article outlines the subsequent events, as refl ected in the correspondence between Leontiev and his friend K. A. Gubastov. Vogüé’s review of Leontiev’s work was discovered in one of the archival documents.

MEMORY AND TEXT: N. N. BERBEROVA ON A. A. BLOK

This article touches upon the funeral of A. Blok, as depicted by N. Berberova in her memoirs, The Italics Are Mine (1969). Specifi cally, it analyses the funeral episode in light of her earlier articles, published in 1931 and 1947. We examine the way Berberova modifi ed the story, giving us a unique opportunity to follow her path through memories to memoirs.

AT THE GATES OF THE RUSSIAN HANDWRITTEN TRADITION OF MODERN TIMES

[Review]: Shamin S. M. Inostrannye «pamfl ety» i «kur’ezy» v Rossii XVI — nachala XVIII stole tiia. M.: Ves’ Mir, 2020. 392 s.