In the article, the starting point of the study is the changes in the semantic aspects of the work by Russian emigrant writers of the first wave. These writers bring conceptually significant topics ...to the pages of their works, thus highlighting the scale of the global catastrophe. It is argued that, under these conditions, an objective pattern is a change in genre preferences, in particular, the emigrant writers’ turn to memoir genres as the most relevant in the context of emigration, which in turn entails a change in thematic priorities. Trace the features of the literary representation of the conceptually established understanding of happiness in the conditions of the first-wave emigration on the example of the works by the writers N. Teffi and Z. Shakhovskaya. Methods: comparative biographical analysis, the historical research method, and concept analysis. Unlike the male understanding of happiness by emigrant writers, female authors focus on the detailed (material) world rather than philosophical generalizations associated with history and politics. The very understanding of happiness for female writers, according to the authors, is akin to interpretations of the state of contentment, prosperity, well-being, joy from abundant life. The uniqueness of understanding the concept of “happiness” is primarily due to gender differences. The authors propose to connect the origins of the formation of this worldview with the folklore traditions of the Russian people, in which happiness is described as an emotionally elevated state of human satisfaction. A similar understanding is established in childhood, and its images become key in emigrant works. At the same time, the feminine view is characterized by patriarchal nature and belief in the victory of good over evil.
In the wake of Lev Tolstoi’s appraisals of his work, Guy de Maupassant was embraced by Russian twentieth-century authors who admired his mastery of the short story. The Soviet writer Isaak Babel’ and ...the émigré writer Ivan Bunin reference stories and other texts by Maupassant in their stories ‘Guy de Maupassant’ and ‘Bernard’. To these authors, Maupassant constitutes a means of expressing their own outlook on the craft of literature. Mediated by the act of translation from French into Russian, Maupassant’s writing enables the Russian authors to articulate distinct identities regarding their national literature: as Soviet and émigré.
This paper is devoted to the influence that the experience of emigration had on the poetics of Khodasevich's book European Night (Evropeiskaia noch'). Till the spring of 1925 Khodasevich thought that ...he had the possibility to return to the Soviet Union. This state of mind determined the pragmatic meaning of the poems that Khodasevich wrote in the period between 1922 and 1925, i.e. the time in which he emigrated to Europe and yet did not feel himself a “real” emigrant. These poems are characterized by a satirical orientation as well as by a radical rejection of emigration. On the other hand, the texts that were written between 1925 and 1927 (when Khodasevich formed his self-identification as an emigrant) radically changed the pragmatics of European Night: In this way it becomes a book expressing a deep existential despair. This inner crisis includes the Russian space as well as the space of emigration. In our study we also analyse the way in which Khodasevich mitigates the satirical orientation of the first version of the book.
This article presents the role of selected motifs of prayer depicted in the works of first-wave Russian emigrants in the creation of a certain type of national mythology. The starting point of the ...considerations is a reflection on the status of emigrant literature at the time of its creation, during the period of political changes in the Soviet bloc, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and today. From the beginning, émigré literature has served as a certain treasury of images and symbols, which are treated as necessary elements for maintaining the national identity of emigrants. The article presents selected motifs from the works of Ivan Shmelev’s The Year of the Lord and Pilgrimage, and Boris Zaitsev’s Saint Sergius of Radonezh, showing prayer as an element of ritual, as a collective request, and as an act of deep contact with God. The analysis of the selected examples shows that regardless of the literary form, narrative perspective, or the way the subject was presented, the writers showed prayer motifs in a patriotic context, while mythologizing pre-revolutionary Russia and bringing the idea of “Holy Rus” to life. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been an increased interest in emigrant literature, and the ideas contained therein have proven to be very important for the formation of the new national consciousness of Russians. Today, due to another political change in Russia and its political isolation, émigré literature is of renewed importance in Russian circles. The writers whose works are discussed in this study are regarded as the main Orthodox writers of the twentieth century, and the image of praying Russia is again the basis for building a new national identity. The study concludes with the observation that the value of emigrant literature should be studied in the context of the time of its creation.
The paper traces David Burliuk’s evolution as a poet, essayist and editor in the United States, where he began his career in the pro-Soviet Russian émigré newspaper Russky Golos and then switched to ...his personal project — Color and Rhyme, the Burliuk family magazine. The paper examines some strategies of Burliuk's self-presentation in Color and Rhyme; since in this edition Burliuk is presented as a poet and an artist, the paper analyzes, how both of these roles of Burliuk relate to each other in the texts published in the magazine. Focusing on the English-speaking reader, Burliuk emphasized the European context of his artistic biography; other contributors that published their articles and reviews in the Color and Rhyme stressed his cultural affinity with Paul Gaugin, Expressionists, Fauvists and characterized Burliuk as “American Van Gogh”. Special attention is paid to the ways of representation of American poetry in Color and Rhyme. Burliuk’s magazine published works by members of some New York poetic communities, such as The New York Poetry Forum and The Raven Poetry Circle of Greenwich Village. In particular, it is described how Burliuk as an editor represented beginners or littleknown authors in the earlier periods of his editorial activity. The article shows that Color and Rhyme magazine can be viewed not only as a tool for “promoting” D. Burliuk's art, but also as a chronicle of his activity as a writer and artist.
Abstract
Drawing on archival research, this article introduces several Russian poems by the Arabic mahjar poet and writer Mikhail Naimy (Mīkhāʿīl Nu'aymah) (1889-1988) for the first time to ...scholarship. By examining the influence of Russian literature on Naimy's literary output, we shed light on the role of multilingualism in generating literary identities and in shaping literary form. Naimy's Russian poetry, we argue, furthers our understanding of the nahḍah as a multilingual movement that synthesized influences from many different languages. We also show how this multilingual orientation served as a bridge between the nahḍah and mahjar literature, by helping Arab writers craft a poetics of Arabic modernism in the diaspora. Alongside documenting an important archival discovery, this research contributes to our understanding of the temporality of Arabic modernism while illuminating its geographically and linguistically diverse substance.
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