Literary criticism

Such epic experiments of Ye. P. Lyutsenko as «Cheslav», «Burivoy and Ylmila» are analyzed in the article; their sources are established, they are «The Russian Primary Chronicle», «Joachim’s Chronicle»; the peculiarity of the pre-Romantic historicism is revealed.

The object of analysis in the article is the multidimensional structure of Turgenev’s novel Smoke and the ways of ‘overplot’ formation, ‘double perspective’ of the plot lines: allusions, symbolic motives and images, color narration. The author assumes that the artistic experience of Turgenev as a novel writer allows to see the genesis of some signature elements in the poetics of the symbolist novel.

The article considers the attitudes of N. M. Sokolov and N. Ya. Stechkin – the leading critics of the journal Russkiy Vestnik in 1902–1906 – to the oeuvre of Leonid Andreev and to its place in the readers’ minds. The article shows to what extent the critical evaluations depended on the topics unfolded in the author’s works.

The article treats the literary critics’ works of 1923–1925 concerning the perception of Sergei Esenin’s book of poems «Moskva Kabatskaya» (Tavern Moscow). The book in question provoked different interpretations and numerous contradictory responses of critics of diverse aesthetic beliefs belonging to various literary groups.