Figury kresu życia w późnej poezji Bułata Okudżawy

Author(s): Aleksandra Urban-Podolan / Language(s): Polish Issue: 127/2009

Poets’ late work, called “farewell gesture” by Anna Legeżyńska, tends to exhibit a repertoire of — to quote Tomasz Wójcik’s phrase — “metaphorical figures of autobiographism, made up of the condensed metaphors of poets’ autobiographies.” Among those figures, he stresses the three basic ones: enumeration, circle, and refl ection. Legeżyńska adds — as cognate ones — ‘figure of life-journey’ (road of life) and ‘topos of crossing’ (a river, threshold, gateway, doorway, etc.). In Okudzhava’s poetry the intensifi cation of those “metaphorical figures of autobiographism” — usually present in coming to terms with the poet’s past — appeared in the work of his last two decades of creative life, i.e. the 1980s and 1990s — marked by the poet’s struggle with his disease, a result of which are his refl ections on the transience of life and unavoidability of death. This paper analyses not only the above-mentioned, classic, end-of-life figures, but also other, specific to Okudzhava, ones, such as the life-as-waiting room motif.

A Different Take on Humanities

Author(s): Włodzimierz Bolecki / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

The foreword to this issue focuses on the core functional differences between the humanities and hard sciences (i.e. different approaches to such phenomena as language, translation, teamwork, writing, discipline.s history, publishing, tradition, innovation). Yet, this dichotomy is questioned in the conlusion. The author argues that whenever human artifacts are at stake, both the humanites and experimental sciences are equally hard, because they inquire the same matter, ie. how the products of human cognitive activities were created and what are their social functions. Therefore, the author calls for a new model for interdisciplinary studies.

F5: Refreshing Philology

Author(s): Maciej Maryl / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Foreword to the issue dedicated to the “new philology”, focusing on the use of digital methods in literary studies. The author asserts that digital humanities concerns ‘the digital’ only to a limited extent. This is not discipline or paradigm, but rather a movement or a package of shared values that guides researchers from different disciplines in the humanities

The Avant-Garde Artist: Between the All-Too-Human and the Inhuman. Towards an Anthropological Aesthetics

Author(s): Magdalena Popiel / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

This article outlines a project of anthropological aesthetics as the area of interdisciplinary investigations. Anthropological aesthetics takes the advantage of narrativism methodology in order to analyse the condition of creative individual (the idea of genius) who is self-creating whilst being created through stories told by the others. The article’s central thread is a characteristics of avant-garde artists’ narratives of artistic experiences, set in the context of anti-anthropocentric issues.

The Narrative Instinct. The Anthropological Difference in the Philological Framework

Author(s): Arkadiusz Żychliński / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

Discussing more and more present in the ethology trend of anthropomorphization, the article attempts at synthetic image of the anthropological difference, i.e. the difference identifying the human life form. The reconstruction of Michael Tomasello.s cooperative structure of human communication as a condition for the emergence of the infrastructure of shared intentionality (enabling the possession of the theory of mind, i.e. ability to perceive the world on multiple levels from the perspective of the others) leads to posing the question of the human being from the philological point of view: being-in-the-world is analysed in this respect as being-on-the-stories. The thesis that it is precisely fabulation (and not only naming) which is a natural human way of entering an exchange with oneself, the others and the world, is supported by the statement of the evolutionary benefits such as simulational and immunological dimension of a story.

From Eyewitness Narratives to Retellings and Literary Adaptations: The Russian Time of Troubles in Early Modern Europe

Author(s): George Prokhorov / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The article focuses on the adaptation strategies used by Lope de Vega in his play El Gran Duque de Moscovia y emperador perseguido (1617). This tragedy, built on material acquired from travelogues, represents the first depiction of the Russian Time of Troubles in fiction. In it, one can follow Lope de Vega’s shift from preserving the factual details collected from different travel sources to creating his own Baroque story placed within a purely Catholic world, as opposed to reality. In doing this, Lope de Vega creates a fictional space filled with mystery and miracles, where Heavens can intervene and punish the guilty party, whereby restoring the original status quo. Key situations turn from illustrations of an alien world into much more general depictions, namely, that of a tyrant versus a legal monarch, and the will of a ruler versus the law. The shift into tyranny provides the story with a new narrative centre and, by following Lope de Vega’s emphasis on the “Muscovian story,” discloses its universal spirit.[1]

СНОВА О ПЕРСПЕКТИВАХ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ПОЭТИКИ

Author(s): Vladimir Nikolaevich Zakharov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article explains the phenomenon of historical poetics in Russia. At the end of the 19th century it was discovered and substantiated by A. N. Veselovsky. He formulated the idea, proposed the original concept of poetics, and introduced new categories of analysis which were the words “sujet”, “motif”, “genre” borrowed from the French language, and which changed their meaning in the Russian language. Their "reverse translation" is almost impossible. The fact that they have become key categories largely determines the originality of historical poetics in Russian literary studies. In the middle of the twentieth century the study of the history of literature in terms of poetics captivated such outstanding scientists as M. M. Bakhtin, D. S. Likhachev, S. Averintsev. Their example was followed by many others. In the political conditions of the 1950s-1980s, historical poetics allowed avoiding the dogmatism of party criticism, gave an opportunity to study literature and art beyond the politics and restrictions of Soviet ideology. Today, the study of historical poetics is mainly determined by the inertia of the initial acceleration. New ideas, concepts, original researches are in demand.

«…ВСЯ КОЛОМНА И ПЕТЕРБУРГСКАЯ ПРИРОДА ЖИВАЯ…»: «ДОМИК В КОЛОМНЕ» А. С. ПУШКИНА И ПОВЕСТЬ Н. В. ГОГОЛЯ «ПОРТРЕТ»

Author(s): Vyacheslav Koshelev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article deals with the circumstances of A. S. Pushkin’s acquaintance with N. V. Gogol, that raises a number of questions. Why did Pushkin let Gogol read first his new poem “The Little House at Kolomna”? Why did Gogol first appreciate its incomprehensible plot and the depiction of “Petersburg nature”? What did the topography of the town mean for Pushkin and Gogol? Why did they place the characters of their works into this district of the capital? The answers to these questions will help to clarify the creative relationships between two classical authors of Russian literature.

МОНОЛОГ Н. В. ГОГОЛЯ В МНОГОГОЛОСЬЕ «ЖЕНИТЬБЫ»

Author(s): Igor’ A. Vinogradov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of the comedy Gogol "Marriage" in a single creative and biographical context. The play is related to the early Gogol works, the stories of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", the comedy "The Inspector General", the "Nevsky Prospekt", the history of the writer's later alleged matchmaking and the long-standing monastic aspirations of Gogol. In the "polyphony" of "Marriage" the hidden author's position, the ascetic attitude of the writer to marriage, as well as the connection between the idea of ​​the play and the hagiographic literature, become clear. Biblical and evangelical reminiscences were noted, which determined the circle of Gogol's reflections on the ways of salvation in monasticism or in a marriage union. The ideological and thematic rolls between the "Marriage" and the surviving chapters of the second volume of "Dead Souls" are planned. Some possible prototypes of Gogol's heroes are established. The unity of the artist's creative path is emphasized.

ПРИТЧЕВЫЙ ХАРАКТЕР «МОСКОВСКИХ РАССКАЗОВ О БЕДНЫХ» М. Н. МАКАРОВА

Author(s): Natalya Tangaeva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article is dedicated to the study of the impact of the Evangelic parable on the flash fiction of M. N. Makarov in the early 1840s. Since he was young Makarov cared for national history, everyday life and religious faiths of common people. He also envisages the Evangelic parable as a meaningful narration that Jesus used to represent a spirit of his teaching. The writer’s “Moscow tales about the poor”, published under the pen-name of Makariy Bystroretsky, had an instructive character of the Evangelic parable. Following the parabolic type Makarov writes about home and family, richness and poorness, Salvation through Jesus Christ. By their themes his stories are similar to the evangelic parables of the Unjust Judge, of the Lost Sheep, of the Pharisee and the Publican, of the Good Samaritan, of the Rich Man and Lazarus, of the Rich Full. The tales contain the motives of mercy, love for one’s neighbor, humiliation, responsibility to people and God, declared in the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus. A parabolic character of the narration allows the writer to demonstrate “modern miracles” that happen to those who walk with God. Makarov’s tales teach to rely on Divine Providence, to take gratefully the ordeals and the prizes of life. The episodes representing Russian everyday life in the tales serve as a symbolic embodiment of spiritual and physical happiness of Man who made his approach to Jesus Christ. The storylines of Makarov’s tales traces their origins to the texts and motives of the parables in the New Testament. Putting Christian wisdom into a simple narrative the writer’s stories make people’s faith grow.

АВТОР И ГЕРОЙ В ПОЭМЕ А. К. ТОЛСТОГО «ИОАНН ДАМАСКИН»

Author(s): Tatiana Fedoseeva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

A. K. Tolstoy is a poet of the realistic epoch who kept a romantic approach to reality. The poem “John of Damascus” holds a specific place in the poet’s creative body of work representing the writer’s worldview and his aesthetic position. The subjective and objective world of the writing is under investigation in terms of Bakhtin’s theory and modern historical poetics. The article brings to light the specificity of speech organization of the text, narration functioning, dialogue and monologue. While studying the poem the author appeals to the hagiographic texts and funeral canticles by the Reverend that allow precising the ties between the image of John and his prototype. He also points out the meaning of the closing episode of the hagiography of the Holy Man for the poem’s storyline, and the role of the romantic motif of the detachment in the depiction of the hero. The hero’s dialectic image in the poem is defined as the one that traces back to the image of the Reverend John of Damascus and remains under the impact of the image of the author himself. An inner nature of the hero’s image is seen as a juxtaposition of the idea of the superior Divine office, deriving from the historical prototype, and the author’s romantic aspiration for absolute freedom in creative work. The violation of an aesthetic border of the hero’s objectivization is achieved due to the subjectiveness of the writer. The lyric monologues and fragments of the improper and direct speech constituting the poem objectify the hero’s image. Through the expressiveness of the latter the author’s subjectiveness is traced. The author and the hero are thought as the images that possess subjectiveness and objectified at the same time in the world. The study of the nature of subjective and objective relations in the poem gives an access to the value-based level of its content. The poem “John of Damascus” presents parallel ways of searching for truth by two poets — a theologian and an artist. The first one comes to the ideal of a humbled man, whilst the other one to the idea of the assertion of man’s dignity in front of God. The value-based level of the poem’s content going back to orthodox understanding of the historical prototype, the hero’s and author’s images, defines semantic wholeness of the poem.

ПОЭТИКА ЭПИЛОГА РОМАНА ДОСТОЕВСКОГО «ПОДРОСТОК

Author(s): Tamara Batalova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article investigates the genre peculiarity and the poetics of the epilogue in Dostoevsky’s novel “A Raw Youth”. Its originality resides specifically in the divergence between “the author’s novel” and “the hero’s notes”. The novel does not contain such a distinctive compositional element as an epilogue. The role of the latter belongs to the critical letter of Nikolai Semyonovich, ex-mentor of the Adolescent, on his “Notes” (“Chapter Thirteen. Conclusion”). The critical letter discloses the characteristics of heroes and the epoch, rethinks the situations and motives of the key part of the writing. In his novel Dostoevsky on the one hand reveals the destruction of the “displaced” life standards of the nobles, the decadence of the noblemen’s concept of honor and duty, on the other hand, he insists that the way of salvation of the country from the “disorder and chaos” consists in reinforcement of the orthodox thinking, implementation of the idea of spiritual commonality, bringing together of the “superior Russian thought” and the popular truth. This is the meaning of the novel’s title: all Russian society and the country in whole is an adolescent.

СТАРОРУССКИЙ ТЕКСТ Ф. М. ДОСТОЕВСКОГО: СТРУКТУРА И ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЕ ПОНЯТИЯ

Author(s): Yulia Vyacheslavovna Yukhnovich / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2018

Presently, the study of local texts (mainly urban ones) is really urgent.One of such local texts that evokes interest of the researches is the text of Staraya Russa by F. M. Dostoevsky. The real space of Staraya Russa town becomes asort of an artistic model of the World embodied in the writer’s works. Such categories as “the text of Staraya Russa” and “Dostoevsky’s text of Staraya Russa”have been defined. From a structural viewpoint the concept “Dostoevsky’s textof Staraya Russa” comprises the following components: Staraya Russa as viewedby the writer, the repercussions of the realias of Staraya Russa in his works(novels “Demons”, “The Adolescent”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, “A Writer’sDiary”), Dostoevsky remembrance at Staraya Russa. The study of this concept allows us to answer the questions about the role of the countryside in life and works of the writer and about the significance of his name for history and culture of Staraya Russa.

Българановски етюди 3: Вие сте човек с бъдеще, но какво бъдеще? Бъдещето ще покаже

Author(s): Veneta Savova,Nadezhda Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 02/2017

Le Déluge, les savants et la mer Noire : une nouvelle mythologie scientifique ?

Author(s): Laurent Carozza,Albane Burens / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2018

Noah’s Flood is a narrative structure that has cross ages and civilizations. It is above all a deterministic posture in our perception of the relationship between societies and their environment. We attempt in this paper to examine the universal character of the Flood myth, and how some scientists call upon this mythological structure to justify or dress up their studies. Consequently, we try to observe the causal links established by some researchers between the history of climate and societies, to explain the origin of the Noah’s Flood. We seek to understand how scientific discourse was built around the research dedicated to the incarnation of the place, and how today the use of Earth Sciences to unravel the true of the fake is carried out. Furthermore, it is particularly interesting to pore over the links between archaeologists - historians of materiality - and environmental scientists. In this article, we will briefly present our investigations conducted on the populating of the Black Sea coastline during recent Prehistory, and the way we evidenced a landscape (more than 7000 years old), nowadays largely submerged by the floodplain of the Danube delta. Those works have led us to many questions about the existence of a flood in the Black Sea.

Сергей Александрович Николаевский — политический обозреватель журнала «Гражданин» в 1872—1873 гг.

Author(s): Alexander Otlivanchik / Language(s): English,Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article studies international and political commentaries by S. A. Nikolaevsky published under the cryptonym of S. N. in the journal “Grazhdanin” in 1872—1873. Based on the study of archival materials and autobiographical remarks in the journal articles we have identified the personality of that little known employee of “Grazhdanin”: his first name and father’s name, an approximate time of birth and an exact date of death, his network of acquaintance, activity etc. The opinion, that was earlier made public, about the using of the pseudonym of Dorogobuzhsky tourist by Nikolaevsky is considered here and is recognized hardly probable. The question about the authorship of “Political Review” in issue 10 of “Grazhdanin” of 1873 and of two anonymous publications topically correlated to the reviews by Nikolaevsky — a series of sketches “What did the death of Napoleon III in France result in” (1873 № 2) and the article “France” (1873. № 21) — is discussed. The probable authorship of the last two texts is attributed to the publisher of “Grazhdanin” V. P. Meshchersky.

«Дело о куманинском наследстве» в жизни и творчестве Ф. М. Достоевского

Author(s): Borisova Valentina V. / Language(s): English,Russian Issue: 1/2018

The article reviews the so called “Kumanin heritage case” which left a significant mark in biography and works of F. M. Dostoevsky. The “great importance” of the help that the writer had been receiving from wealthy Moscow relatives Kumanins throughout almost all his life is disclosed on the basis of nonficional materials. But monetary and estate heritage turned out to be “unlucky” for him, as V. M. Karepina pointed it out. As it resulted from Dostoevsky’s correspondence with his brothers and sisters, the archival materials, documents presented in a number of historical and biographical researches as well as from the court records with regard to that case, he became a victim of circumstances and intrigues. This viewpoint that is confirmed, in particular, by the story of his debt to the Ivanovs. Their relations failed to stand against the Kumanin “case” and led to a tragic outcome — death of the writer. In conclusion the article specifies the issues for further studying of the “the Kumanin heritage case” from the moral and legal points of view and in terms of its reflection in writer’s works, in which the motif of the “fateful heritage” has an important narrative and ideological meaning.

DER KRIEG MIT HUMANEN ANTLITZ IN GOTTLIEB STEPHANIES DES JÜNGEREN SOLDATENSTÜCK "DIE KRIEGSGEFANGENEN"

Author(s): Florian Pech / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2016

Gottlieb Stephanie the younger, author of many frequently performed playwrights, is also known as a productive author of soldier plays (Soldatenstücke). As a veteran and citizen of enlightened josephinist Austria, he worked continuously to improve the army’s image and to propagate the ideas of state enlightenment at the same time. His early play Die Kriegsgefangenen (prisoners of war), which can be read as a direct successor of and commentary on Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm. This play depicts bourgeois citizens and soldiers subjected to the condition of war. The analysis at hand tries to show that Stephanie confronts his audience with virtuous behavior in order to overcome unjustified negative stereotypes.

DEUTSCH-ÖSTERREICHISCHE HEIMAT: NS-LYRIK UND EXILLYRIK IM VERGLEICH

Author(s): Sabine Schopf / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2016

The aim of this essay is to analyze and compare the language used in lyric poetry during the era of National Socialism in Germany and Austria. The two main fields of analysis are the rhetorical characteristics of poetry used by the proponents of the National Socialist movement to promote their fascist ideology, which is mainly based on terms like homeland or Germany. These words are also used by political opponents or people persecuted due to their race or origin, who had been forced to leave Germany. These exiled poets, like e.g. Bertolt Brecht, give a completely different meaning to terms like homeland. The different perception of these terms is being depicted in detail comparing the main representatives of both groups and contrasting some exemplary poems with each other.

Мотив измены в Защите Лужина Владимира Набокова

Author(s): Martyna Sienkiewicz / Language(s): Russian Issue: 17/2017

This paper is devoted to infidelity motif (its function and place in the novel) in one of Russian-language works of V. Nabokov, The Defence. We believe that infidelity motif, each time appearing in a key strategic moments of a story, is a symbol of life deception by a character in favor of chess reality. The world that constantly takes away vital energy, comprehension and makes character a social cripple, subhuman. This motif fulfills supportive function, enriching aesthetic value of main motif (chess), around which whole novel is built. Nabokov masterfully joins both phenomena and silently imply that ideal art does not deny reality, but they tend to coexist in sui generis symbiosis.