Концепции русского реализма в англо-американской славистике
Concepts of Russian Realism in Anglo-American Slavic Studies

Summary/Abstract: The term realism is one of the most controversial in literary studies. By the mid 19th century, its content had been established on the philosophical foundation of positivism. By the second half of the 1960s, the term, as well as the realistic mode of depicting the world in literature itself, began to be syste¬ matically subjected to critical reflection in foreign and domestic scholarship. Significant milestones on this path in foreign humanities included the works of R. Barthes, T. Todorov, and N. Goodman, and in domestic literary scholarship, the works of A. M. Gurevich, V. M. Markovich, I. A. Esaulov, and V. N. Zakharov. Foreign scholars followed the path of poststructuralism and deconstructivism, converging on the thesis that any realism is created by a discourse that convinces of the reality of what is depicted. Russian scholarship continued the traditions of hermeneutics and historical poetics. In 20th century English Slavic studies, Russian realism was conceptualised in two ways, diverging from both the “gene¬ ral Western” and the Russian approaches to it. The first was M. Baring’s ethno- cultural concept. It captured in Russian literature from Pushkin to Chekhov a correspondence to the national character and singled out its combination of the poetics of everyday life, an immanent “sense of reality,” and humaneness. D. S. Mirsky pioneered the second (fundamentally non religious) concept. As the leading features of Russian realism, it singled out the poeticisation of reality, concealed moralism, and the author’s sympathy for the characters. By the 1940s, the concept of “sympathetic” realism had been synthesised with the ethnocultural one and became established in English Slavic studies as the dominant view. Under the influence of structuralist ideas, it gradually changed: by the 1960s, a discursive approach focusing on the techniques of persuading the reader that the created image of the world corresponds to reality became widespread. In Anglo American works of the 1970s–1990s, a new position found expression — the unification of the approach to classical Russian and European literature of the 19th century, based on the theories of socio historical determinism and poststructuralism. At the beginning of the 21st century, a postcolonial vector emerged in English language studies of Russian realism. The potential for turning to the Orthodox worldview as the plot and axiological foundation of the classic Russian novel, identified in English (and French) Slavic studies at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, proved unclaimed.

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