Izvestiya of Saratov University.
Philology. Journalism
ISSN 1817-7115 (Print)
ISSN 2541-898X (Online)

Literary criticism

“Our family was called the ‘blessed family’ in the city...” (to the biography of Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin)

The work deals with the questions of the biography of the outstanding Russian scientist-humanitarian, academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences A. N. Pypin (1833–1904). The purpose of the study is to identify and summarize materials about the Saratov period of the scientist’s life, to present the history of his family, to reveal the role of his father and mother in intellectual and spiritual development.

On the influence of the novel What Is to Be Done? by N. G. Chernyshevsky on the work of S. A. Yesenin

The article discusses the origins of Sergei Yesenin’s acquaintance with the novel What Is to Be Done? by N. G. Chernyshevsky: this happened in Spas-Klepikovskaya second-class teacher’s school in 1909-1912. The work was read among the intellectuals, and students outside of school hours argued about it and embraced the ideals of the “new people”. Later Yesenin encountered Chernyshevsky’s novel at the lectures on Russian literature by P. N. Sakulin at Moscow City People’s University named after A. L. Shanyavsky.

Dispute over M. P. Artsybashev’s play Jealousy in Saratov community

Based on the material published in newspapers Saratovskiy Listok (Saratov Leaflet) and Saratovskiy Vestnik (Saratov Herald) the article analyzes the dispute in Saratov community over a provocative drama about a “wife killer” Jealousy – the first play written by a fashionable and scandalous author, M. P. Artsybashev. The reasons for the popularity of the play’s simplified interpretation of F. Nietzsche’s ideas that influenced the development of gender issues and shaped the shocking libertine image of a “new” female predator in public consciousness are revealed.

Praising Stalin’s nomenklatura in The Bearer of the Golden Star: The novel by Semyon Babayevsky and the film by Yuliy Raizman

One of the most popular novels in late Stalinist USSR, The Bearer of the Golden Star (1947–1948) by Semyon Babayevsky, is seen now as a representative symbol of “grand” or “varnishing” style in literature – to the same measure as the eponymous film (1950) by Yuliy Raizman did for the Soviet cinematic tradition. High official status of both texts guaranteed by Stalin’s awards matched the overwhelming success they both enjoyed with general public.

The function and mission of the “little man” in Bulat Okudzhava’s novel Poor Avrosimov

In the beginning of the article we correlate Okudzhava’s story about the creative history of his novel (“invention” of the scrivener’s image) with the writer’s statements about Decembrism, which allows us to solve the following tasks: 1) to restore the main creative impulses of the writer; 2) to characterize the formation of his cognitive strategy, which covers the mythologized past and the tragic events of the Soviet era; 3) to clarify a number of definite functions of the “little man” that have not yet been noted by the interpreters of the novel; 4) to highlight the m

Translation of Solzhenitsyn’s work in the mode of “internal distribution” in China (1960–1980)

In China, the interest to the work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn arose soon after the publication of his story One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in the journal New World with the permission of N. S. Khrushchev in 1962, which immediately attracted the attention of Chinese literary circles. However, the initial interest in Solzhenitsyn was connected with the political situation in China at that time. The period from the 1960s to the 1980s can be considered the initial stage of the translation of the writer’s work.

The confrontation of savageness and civilization in Joe Abercrombie’s fantasy Western Red Country

In the novel Red Country the famous British author Joe Abercrombie carries out a genre experiment combining in one book the features of such distant and incongruous genres as fantasy and Western. He constructs in his imaginary world a territory with all specific characteristics of a Western chronotopos and actively uses typical plot devices of the Western. But on the level of ideas the plot of Red Country comes into a conflict with the basic values of the Western, instilling the clichés borrowed from this genre with a unique author’s meaning.

David Lindsay’s fictive flyting

The article examines the specifics of The Answer to the Kingis Flyting written by the Scottish poet David Lindsay (c. 1490 – c. 1555). This work is the only extant part of the poetic dialogue between the Scottish king James V and his mentor and courtier. It follows the tradition of Scottish court flyting, which traces back to the end of the 15th century and is analyzed in the article on the example of The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy which is supposedly the first work written in this genre.

“I was destroyed by this systematic persecution…”: The problem of re-educating a wife in P. Letnev’s story Unbearable

The article is dedicated to the work of the forgotten writers of the second half of the 19th century Praskovya Alexandrovna (1829-1892) and Anna Alexandrovna (1833–1914) Lachinovs, who published under the collective pseudonym of P. Letnev. Many works of the Lachinovs, including the story Unbearable (1891), address the problems of marriage and family.

Visual portrait of the main character in “Landscape and genre” by N. S. Leskov A Winter’s Day

The problem of the interaction of words and images in the works of N.S. Leskov is currently the least studied. The genre subtitle of the late story A Winter’s Day (1894) – “Landscape and genre” encourages us to consider the work in the aspect of the designated problem. O. V. Evdokimova (1980), B. S. Dykhanova (2013), O. V. Chervinskaya (2018), D. S. Rivanenkova (2021) analyze the features of the genre, taking into account the meanings of the subtitle.

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