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

Literary criticism

N. V. Gogol’s motives in the Russian plays at the turn of the 20–21st centuries (Pannochka by N. Sadur / Viy by V. Sigarev)

The attention of the playwrights and theatre to Gogol’s prosaic text opens new forms of understanding of the classical text, and allows to find in it both deeply personal author’s content and something relevant to the society of a diff erent time. In the plays Pannochka by N. Sadur and Viy by V. Sigarev, the transformation of Gogol’s motives reveals the deep meanings of the story. These are Gogol’s favorite motives of a vague fear of women, eschatological forebodings, the fear of oblivion.

Studying the works of Vasily Shukshin in Chinese literary criticism

The subject of this work is the main themes and ideas of Russian country prose – the school that most fully refl ects the essence of the Russian national mentality. Ethical issues are an integral part of the works of Vasily Shukshin. V. Shukshin’s novellas represent the wisdom, virtue and life experience of a Russian villager, an attempt is made to identify the spiritual foundations. Writers strive to fi nd the foundations of the peasant world. Vasily Shukshin’s works are known not only in Russia, but all over the world.

Meta self-description and self-psychologism as meta-poetic principles of A. I. Solzhenitsyn

The autobiographical character of Solzhenitsyn’s oeuvre, inseparable nature of ethical and aesthetic views, have shaped the author’s unique aesthetics. From the point of view of the author of this article, eliciting the meta-poetic principles defi nes the way of comprehension of Solzhenitsyn’s artistic world, of his ‘phenomenon’. The article presents the analysis of two of Solzhenitsyn’s signifi cant meta-poetic principles: self-meta-description and self-psychologism.

‘Stream of consciousness’ technique: Bergsonian interpretation of psychology in the prose by V. Nabokov

The following article off ers a theoretical interpretation of Nabokov’s aphorism on Joyce’s inner monologues. Nabokov supposed that thinking is extraverbal and cannot be fully embodied in a word. He assumed that James Joyce was wrong to materialize the stream of inner life in a rigid verbal form. For Nabokov, thinking as an uninterrupted continuum of psychological states, should be opposed to the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique and should be moved towards the lyrical synthetism.

The place of landscape in the narrative structure of Kryukov’s works

The purpose of the article is to analyze the main functions of the landscape in the works of F. Kryukov. Nature in his narrative system acts as an independent object of portrayal and a toolkit for description, as the place of the character’s residence and the contemplated landscape, as an integral picture and a set of contrasting elements. The emphasis is placed on the narrative role of the landscape in the development of the author’s point of view, the structuring of the artistic space, and plot formation.

Jack London and “the sharks of the East Coast”: The story of the writer’s business relationship with The Cosmopolitan magazine

This article traces the history of Jack London’s business relationships with The Cosmopolitan magazine, which are reconstructed on the material of the scientifi cally commented The Letters of Jack London (1988).

Specifi c features of implementing the system of oppositions of landscape imagery in the stories about childhood by I. S. Shmelev 1906–1912

This article examines the features of how the system of semantic oppositions of landscape images is objectifi ed in the stories about childhood by the writer of the Russian expatriate community Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev, created in 1906-1912. The research material constitutes the works The Sergeant, On Urgent Business, One Night, Gingerbread (the Doctor’s Story), Festive Heroes, Stars, Timid Silence, related to the pre-emigration period of the author’s ouevre.

Motive of the music of the moon in the poetry by K. D. Balmont

In the article the motive of the music of the moon in K. D. Balmont’s poetry is researched on the material of his poems, prose and aesthetic articles. Its symbolic value and evolution in books of the early, mature and late periods are explored. The following conclusions are drawn. In the early lyric poetry of Balmont the moon is associated with the oxymoronic motive of the ‘sounding silence’.

To the creative history of Yuri Belyaev’s play Psisha

The paper examines the creative history of the play Psisha by Yuri Belyaev – a theatre critic, fi ction writer and dramatist of the Silver Age. While working on the article cycle A night at “The Opera House” about theatre history of the times of Catherine II, the critic researched historical sources: periodical, fi ction, documents of the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries. There Belyaev must have found the material for his early fi ctional experience – the historical short story Psisha.

K. R. (Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich) – reviewer of Bunin’s early poetry

The article deals with the critical review written by the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov on the third and fourth volumes of Ivan Bunin’s collected works. These two volumes were published by the publishing house “Znanie” partnership. The review was written on February 17, 1909 in the city of Pavlovsk. Its purpose was to pass a resolution on whether or not Bunin should be awarded the Pushkin prize. Analyzing the original poems and translations of the award nominee, the critic K. R.

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