Nº 1 (2025)

The article outlines the history of populating Kolyma (beginning with the 17^th century) and of its historical settlements, Nizhnekolymsk and Pokhodsk. The history of epic songs (bylinys) collecting in the region is described (D. I. Melikov, V. G. Bogoraz, S. I. Bolo). The local bylinys are analyzed. Archaic versions of certain story lines are highlighted, as well as the influence of the manuscript tradition (The Wars of the Jews by Josephus Flavius) on one of the epic songs, Mikhail Danilovich, an Underage Warrior. Direct links between Kolyma and Indigirka (Russkoye Ustye) are established.

The article analyzes the religious poetry of the Khlysty sect, focusing on spiritual verses from the heritage of Ivan Krupennikov, a prominent member of the Moscow congregation in the 1730s — 1740s. It examines the themes and motifs of these verses and their connections to the secular song culture of the period.

The article deals with the influence of the Antiquity reminiscences on the Russian literary demonology of the late 18^th — early 19^th century, using the leshy stories as the case study. Because of the general cultural orientation towards the mythological system of the Antiquity, the Slavic leshy was associated with the antique satyr and looked like one in the works of art. The late 18^th century interest in the national mythology gave rise to ethnographic research, as well as to the composition of the lexicons of Slavic superstitions, describing the characters of the Russian folklore. Still, in these lexicons the Slavic demons tended to retain the features of their ancient prototypes: the leshys had strong resemblance to satyrs, the mermaids to nymphs. Such reminiscences introduced tensions to the representations of the demonological characters, that were later reflected in the Russian literature.

The article deals with K. N. Batiushkov’s obscure correspondent P. I. Beletsky, a history teacher in the First and Second Military Cadet Schools, falsely accused of taking part in the Petrashevsky Coup and exiled to Vologda in 1849–1853. The exiled teacher met the poet after 1852. The personality of Beletsky, a vivid representative of the 1840s generation, and the previously unknown facts of his life are revealed through the data from the Manuscript Department, Institute of Russian Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences; Manuscript Departments of the National Library of Russia, Russian State Historical Archive, State Archive of Vladimir Region.

The article aims to explore the positions of Dostoevsky and Chernyshevsky as publicists in a large-scale public dialogue of the second half of the 1850s — 1870s, concerning the so-called Balkan issue. Based on their contributions to Sovremennik and Writer’s Diary magazines, Dostoevsky and Chernyshevsky’s understanding of the issue of national and confessional identity of the Balkan Slavs is considered, as well as the formers’ relations with Russia, Turkey and Europe.

The short story The Teacher of Literature is a contamination of two texts, originally published separately in two different newspapers, and then combined into a whole. In this article, the story is treated as a two-part work, with each part being relatively autonomous and at the same time forming an organic contribution to the whole. The reason for expanding the story The Commoners was Chekhov’s trip to Sakhalin and the related significant changes in his worldview. The story’s literary links to the classics and the contemporaries are reflected in the hidden references to the other works of literature. Chekhov does not force the reader to go searching for a muted intertext, and thus his works can be interpreted both immanently and within a broader literary context.

The article deals with the 140^th anniversary of the birth of Vasilii Kamenskii (1884–1961) — a Futurist poet, prose writer, actor, aviator and painter. His multifaceted activities in Tiflis, Baku, Kutaisi, Batumi in 1916–1920 are presented here, mainly drawing on the reports in the Transcaucasian periodical press. In these cities, he gave a number of lectures mostly on Futurism, performed in the circus of Yesikovsky Brothers, widely interacted with Armenian, Georgian literary milieu. In Tiflis, he published a collection of poems Barefoot Girls and the long poem Tsuvamma as a separate book. In November 1919, the 10^th anniversary of Kamenskii’s literary career was celebrated in Tiflis, and essays on his work were published in the periodical press. The interest of the broad public of Tiflis, Batumi, Kutaisi and Baku in the art of Kamenskii and especially in his work Stenka Razin has not faded throughout the years, which makes him one of the first Russian literary figures to leave a noticeable trace in the Transcaucasian literary environment.

The article offers an interpretation of the cycle Five Tales, that opens B. L. Pasternak’s fourth book of poetry, Themes and Variations. Through textual analysis, the instantiation of the book’s main «themes» (inspiration, art, love, nature, temptation) in the cycle is outlined, as well as their mergence into a unified composition. Furthermore, the article explores the mechanisms of transposition and variation of the «themes» borrowed by the author from his predecessors: Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Blok. Five Tales is showcased as a «system-forming» cycle that defines the foundational motifs of Themes and Variations as a whole and the logic of the book’s unfolding.

I. N. Potapenko’s reminiscences, published here for the first time, cover the initial period of his life in St. Petersburg (from the late 1870s to the early 1880s) when, as a student at both the university and the conservatory, he took his first steps toward a career in literature. The author presents details of student life and describes his interactions with famous writers, including K. M. Stanyukovich, N. F. Bazhin, V. A. Poletika, and others.

The article analyzes G. S. Gore’s poetry in the context of the idea of organics. Having read the books of L. S. Berg and B. M. Kozo-Polyansky and being delighted by V. I. Vernadsky’s doctrine of the biosphere, Gore elaborated on the concept of the spiritual biosphere, identifying it — through Khlebnikov — with the understanding and role of the poetic language. Reflections on the idea of organics, inspired by the epoch, on nature, cosmos, human, language, and their coexistence made him an adept of natural philosophy. This is confirmed, primarily, by Gore’s increased interest in the early work of N. A. Zabolotsky. Proceeding from the utopian idea of the historical avant-garde about the rebirth of the world and consciousness in the poetic word, conjugated with the naturphilosophical doctrine of the unification and interpenetration of all living things, Gore in his poems tries to transcend time and space in the linguistic biosphere. But along the way, he encounters obstacles, historical, verbal, spiritual, and corporeal. Gore’s absurdist word, intended to reflect and transform the catastrophic disintegration of the world and man, loses its potential to generate new meanings. Deprived of the possibility of transcendent breakthrough, revival, the author’s poetic word retains its mimetic function — in a fluent and detailed way, from the inside, from the total frozen space and time in the self-world, it conveys the tragedy and horror of the absurd existence of living corpses — the world of antiorganics.

The publication includes an extract from a stenographic copy of a report on the Italian Neo-Avant-Garde presented by G. S. Breitburd at the International Commission of the Union of the Soviet Writers on September 30, 1965. The goal was to prepare the Soviet delegation for the European Community of Writers’ Congress on the European Avant-Garde. The introductory article offers an outline of the Soviet reception of Italian Neo-Avant-Garde and of Breitburd’s role in it. The publication contains new facts on Breitburd’s work as an important actor of the Soviet «cultural diplomacy» and expands the existing idea of how Western Neo-Avant-Garde was perceived by the Soviet culture.