Claudia Pieralli

Il volume restituisce un quadro complesso delle diverse forme di cultura del dissenso che dagli anni Cinquanta in poi interessano l’Ovest e l’Est europeo, come l’area franco- italiana e quella slavo-orientale (Russia, Bielorussia e Ucraina Sovietiche). Queste aree risultano contraddistinte dalla nascita di forme di contestazione nei confronti dell’establishment culturale e politico che si manifestano in modo antitetico (e con conseguenze diverse) sia in rapporto agli eventi storici che segnano il periodo 1956-1991, sia al tipo di stato in cui tali forme si diffondono. In una prospettiva analitica che privilegia la descrizione della nascita e dello sviluppo dei fenomeni controculturali, si propone per la prima volta un “atlante del dissenso”, propedeutico alla comprensione di un periodo nevralgico della storia europea, caratterizzato, dalla fine della Seconda Guerra Mondiale in poi, dall’asse che separa l’Europa occidentale da quella orientale, compresa nella sfera di influenza del blocco sovietico.

Studiare la ricezione delle repressioni politiche sovietiche come memoria europea significa scoprire le basi su cui poggia oggi que-sta memoria, così incerta e traballante, nonché comprendere da quali versanti si può muovere per recuperare a questa memoria il posto che le spetta all'interno della coscienza memoriale eu-ropea e, in ultima analisi, del sentire collettivo. Questo libro in-tende aprire una nuova prospettiva di indagine sul più longevo totalitarismo europeo. Si tratta di una prospettiva problematica e multidisciplinare, fondata su un assetto metodologico innovativo che ha al suo centro la ricerca e la ricomposizione della "traccia" della ricezione del Gulag nell'Occidente europeo. Si intende, così, aprire una riflessione che promuove la conoscenza di una memo-ria, quella del Gulag, come memoria identitaria europea; una me-moria che stia al fianco di altre memorie del male, ufficializzate e certificate da istituzioni e tribunali internazionali, come la Shoah o il genocidio degli armeni.

Il pensiero estetico di N. Evreinov dalla teatralità alla ‘poetica della rivelazione’, Firenze University Press 2015, Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici.

http://www.fupress.com/catalogo/il-pensiero-estetico-di-nikolaj-evreinov-dalla-teatralita--alla--poetica-della-rivelazione-/3114

ABSTRACT:

The Aesthetic Thought of Nikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov
from Theatricality to the ‘Poetics of Revelation’

This research presents an analysis of the aesthetic thought of the director, playwright, theater theorist and historian, philosopher and art theorist Nikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov (1879-1953), based on a comprehensive study of his artistic and philosophical-theoretical legacy, especially with reference to his critical work during his émigré years in Paris (1927-1953). My intent is to reconstruct the link between Evreinov’s theoretical work, formulated in the pre-Revolution era, and his treatise The Revelation of Art (Otkrovenie iskusstva), written in Paris in the 1930’s and recently published in the original Russian in St. Petersburg in a critical edition edited by myself (see Evreinov 2012). Otkrovenie iskusstva was for Evreinov a kind of intellectual testament. This work, however disorganized, should be considered the summa of his aesthetic concepts, as the destination of a troubled path of research begun as far back as 1908, in the midst of the modernist movement, with the publication of his manifesto-study The Apology of Theatricality (Apologija Teatral’nosti). This volume is divided into two parts: the first presents Evreinov as a director and theoretician of theater, while the second, with a more markedly philosophical approach, examines his ‘poetics of revelation,’ the conceptual essence and interpretive horizon of his aesthetic thought, considered here at last in its entirety and complexity.
 
The first part of the book presents an overview of Evreinov’s critical fortune in Russia and in the West from the 1910’s to the present. Subsequently, his artistic personality is placed in the cultural context of the first two decades of twentieth-century Russian theater. Hence I recount the key moments of his education and the first lines of development of his thought (concerning the relationships between norm and transgression in art, violence and theater), the key thematic nuclei that mark his theoretical production during his Russian period, condensed into his two major works: The Theater as Such (Teatr kak takovoj, 1912) and The Theatre for Oneself (Teatr dlja sebja, 1915-1917). After covering the basic stages of Evreinov’s career as a theorist and director in his homeland, I provide a complete reconstruction of his activities abroad, which I have subdivided into two phases (1925-27 and 1927-1953). Evreinov’s theoretical production is thus presented by contextualizing Revelation of Art in the overall framework of his oeuvre.
The second part of the book presents a formal and conceptual analysis of Evreinov’s major text, Otkrovenie iskusstva, marking the special relationship the author had with his country of origin and its more recent cultural tradition. Herein his tacit models of reference are revealed (Tolstoy’s What Is Art?), and his possible relationships, connections and derivations with respect to the various schools of critical method: formalism and especially Viktor Shklovsky, sociological criticism of Marxist inspiration, Freudianism and its reception in the Russian milieu of the 1920’s. The comparison with the first period of theoretical thought that Evreinov devoted to the theater is here adopted as a basic methodological key, although every kind of influence is taken into account, including his involvement in the Russian Masonic movement of his fellow émigrés in Paris. After having provided a formal-typological analysis of the text, I illustrate in chapter four the cardinal points of his system of thought, focusing on his ‘archetypal I’ (iskonnoe Ja) and the dyad ‘art of mastery’-‘art of super-mastery’ (masterstvo-sverch-masterstvo) by comparing Evreinov’s ideas with those of authors who were his contemporaries (in particular Vladimir Vejdle, Nikolai Berdyaev, Henri Bergson, Georgy Fedotov), or by placing them in relation with the general elements of Masonic moral philosophy. The fifth and final chapter deals with the last part of what according to Evreinov is the path that leads to true artistic revelation. I show here how the author developed a new interpretive theory of normative type that led to a thoroughly original concept of theatricality (teatral’nost’) as a specific method of artistic creation based on visual effectiveness.

The end of this multifaceted analysis reveals that my reflection on Evreinov’s theater, by which he is now known to critics, was from the very start an incursion into the realm of the psychology of art as such. In fact this is the absolute uniqueness and complexity of the Revelation of Art in the context of Evreinov’s aesthetic thought: a sweeping, original theory of art, an important document, till recent years neglected, of a historical segment of Russian émigré culture. His treatise, however, is also the supreme result of the reinterpretation he made as an émigré, a Mason (and in this special sense ‘re-educated’), of a segment of the tradition of Russian aesthetic thought and especially of himself as an anarchic, passionate apologist of theater in life. In this sense, this work represents a summation of the studies and research he carried out over a lifetime, which encloses and reorganizes into a system all the ideas he expressed in his decades-long career as a theoretical provocateur and interpreter of culture.
The Revelation of Art is thus the most eloquent proof of the enlargement of Evreinov’s disciplinary research horizons, in which this multifaceted figure can be more properly placed, no longer identified solely with the disciplinary realm of the history of theater (theory, directing, dramaturgy), but making his way into the history of culture, the history of thought and criticism.

The main focus of this research regards the figure of Nikolai Evreinov in the 1930’s, but it also touches on various disciplines, taking into account elements of textual analysis, the history of the Russian theater, the theory of theater and of symbolic forms in general, and the history of Russian thought and criticism. This without losing sight, in the background, of the intellectual history of the first wave of Russian émigrés (1917-1939), and primarily some phases of the debate on art held in the Russian press published in Paris and some data and documents relating to the history of the Russian Masonic lodges in the Paris of the 1930’s.

Предмет исследования автора, одной из ключевых фигур рус- ского театра Серебряного века, — искусство, его истоки и сущ- ность. В своих теоретических построениях Н. Н. Евреинов (1879– 1953) ставит себе задачу уловить ту «мерцающую грань» между искусством и не-искусством, для чего разрабатывает оригинальную сетку категорий, каждая составляющая которой формирует свой круг понятий. Писавшаяся с начала 1930-х гг. работа, подытожив- шая теоретические разработки и философские построения мысли- теля предыдущих периодов, вобрала в себя теоретическое наследие как предшественников, так и современников, в ней также «слыш- ны» диспуты об искусстве, его целях, состоянии и судьбе первой четверти ХХ века. Издание осуществлено на основе хранящейся в РГАЛИ маши- нописной редакции, наиболее полно подготовленной автором к пе- чати; в отдельных случаях для более адекватного понимания текста привлекаются материалы первой редакции, отложившейся в фонде Евреинова в Национальной библиотеке Франции.

Starting with the 1950s, the European context saw the emergence of various movements of cultural dissent, which involved both western and eastern countries and led to forms of literary and artistic protest against the cultural and political establishment. In particular, underground movement-connected with the American scenario-and Neo-vanguard groups developed in Italy, France, and Germany, while the Soviet area was pervaded by the culture clandestinely disseminated by the Samizdat circuit. This contribution offers a comprehensive view of the multifaceted forms of literary, cultural, and artistic dissent considered by the essays collected here, with special attention to the differences between Western and Eastern areas. These two contexts, in fact, are addressed separately in the following sections: Neo-vanguard and contestation: the two forms of dissent in the western area and The kaleidoscopic planet of Soviet non-conformism: into, beyond and around the Samizdat.

The present survey develops a basis for an extensive study of poetry written by the victims of political repressions in the whole area of segregation in the Soviet Union: preliminary and transit prisons, pre-Stalinist, Stalinist, and post-Stalinist forced
labor camps and prisons, Gulag, and the so called specposelenija (settlements in confinement). The research relies on the evidence drawn from the already published
as well as hitherto unknown archive materials related to the period between 1918 and 1956. The author of the article proposes a detailed systematization of the corpus of
the poetry, based on historical and typological criteria that complement her previous research on the subject. The aim of the article is to encourage and help further studies in this area. Based on the evidence provided by the first and second degree sources, the essays demonstrates the effectivity of the proposed methodology, which is entirely based on the key-concept of the so called “Zone poetry” as a literary track of testimony of political repression which was synchronical with the imprisonment experience in the USSR.

Аннотация: Настоящий обзор является базовым для более широкого исследования поэзии, написанной жертвами политических репрессий в тюрьмах, лагерях и ссылках в Советском Союзе: предварительных и пересыльных тюрьмах, досталинских, сталинских и постсталинских исправительно-трудовых лагерях и тюрьмах, ГУЛАГе и спецпоселениях. Исследование основано на данных, полученных из опубликованных и архивных материалов, относящихся к периоду 1918-1956 гг. Автор статьи предлагает детальную систематизацию корпуса поэзии, основанную на исторических и типологических критериях, которые дополняют работу над данными, полученными автором в предыдущих исследованиях. Работа послужит основой для дальнейших исследований. Продуктивность предлагаемой методологии основана на ключевой концепции «поэзии зоны» как литературного следа политических репрессий, синхронизированных с тюремным заключением в СССР. Ключевые слова: поэзия ГУЛАГа, литературное свидетельство, политические репрессии, поэзия-свидетельство, поэзия «зоны», поэзия в заключении, советская поэзия, поэзия политзаключенных, лагерная литература.

Аннотация: Цель статьи — представить корпус стихотворений, созданных жертвами политических репрессий в Советском Союзе, с точки зрения опубликованных сборников и главных научных работ, касающихся прежде всего текстов сталинской эпохи. В исследовании обозначены теоретические и эпистемологические рамки для изучения и определения данного литературного явления истории русской культуры ХХ в. Речь идет, во-первых, о возможности рассмотреть эти литературные тексты в связи с понятием свидетельства и, во-вторых, о попытке выявления определенной специфичности структурного и эстетического взаимодействия свидетельствующей функции с художественно-литературным преображением в особом случае стихотворчества. Данный корпус текстов рассматривается как материал для изучения статуса поэтического слова как эстетического средства, способного дать историческое (и художественное, шире — культурное) свидетельство о советской концентрационной системе. В статье выявляются художественные приемы, при помощи которых осуществляется свидетельская функция. В данной теоретической постановке корпус поэтических текстов политзаключенных составляет одно специфическое целое в истории русской литературы ХХ в. и таким следует его представить и в дальнейших исследованиях. Ключевые слова: литературное свидетельство, поэзия ГУЛАГа, лагерная поэзия. Информация об авторе: Клаудия Пьералли — PhD по русской литературе (Миланский университет), доцент (Tenure Track Ass. Professor) русской литературы ХХ в.

"Gulag Poetry" or "Zone poetry"? Problems and Analytical Perspectives for the Descripcion of the Poetical Corpus of Political Prisoners in the USSR.

The present survey aims at creating the basis for an extensive study on the generically called "Gulag poetry": poetry written by victims of political repressions in the whole area of Segregation in the Soviet Union, which we call "zone": preliminary and transit prisons, pre-Stalinist, Stalinist and post-Stalinist forced labour camps and prisons, Gulags and confinement (life in specposelki), exc.. The research relies on evidence drawn from published as well as archive materials, concerning the 1918-1956 period. We therefore propose a detailed systematization of the corpus, based on historical and typological criteria, which complement the work on data the author has acquired in previous studies, in order to help develop further studies on a solid and effective methodological basis. On the evidence provided by first and second degree sources, we demonstrate the productiveness of the proposed methodology, which is entirely based on the key-concept of ‘poetry of Zone’ as a literary track of testimony of political repression, which was synchronical to the imprisonment experience in the USSR.

Цель настоящей работы – анализ корпуса поэтических текстов, возникших в условиях опыта “на грани” и объединенных общими пространственно-времен- ными и историческими параметрами, связанными с политическими преследова- ниями и пребыванием в заключении в эпоху советской власти. Т.е. созданных в условиях, которые я определяю как “зону”. Исследуемые произведения создавались не только собственно в лагере, но и в любом “заключении”, например в тюрьмах, которое предшествуют попаданию в Гулаг (следственные и пересыльные тюрьмы). Мое внимание сосредоточено на корпусе поэзии, появившейся во время пер- вых двух десятилетий политических репрессий в СССР т.е. на анализе системно отобранных образцов поэтических текстов, относящихся к трем различным пери- одам существования “зоны”: ленинскому (1919-1924), ранне сталинскому (1924- 1931) и периоду пика репрессий (1931-1939). Анализ, содержащий две части, одна из которых посвящена первому деся- тилетию советской власти, а вторая – тридцатым годам, строится на сопостави- тельном анализе подпольного поэтического творчества “зоны” с одной сторо- ны и официального (гулаговская и тюремная пресса) с другой. В работе сделана попытка описать каналы распространения созданной заключенными поэзии, ее формальные, тематические и психо-антропологические, в том числе и этногра- фические, особенности, а также этапы ее исторической эволюции. Исследование имеет целью, опираясь на новые методологические подходы (хронологические и этнографические критерии), наметить основные направления структурного ана- лиза текстов, созданных в условиях тюремного заключения жертвами советских политических репрессий и попытаться выделить отличительные

La poésie du Goulag, en tant que genre, est une des manifestations de la littérature produite par les victimes du régime soviétique. Cet article cherche à révéler les relations entre deux phénomènes littéraires : d'une part, la littérature des victimes du stalinisme et, d'autre part, la littérature de l'ailleurs. Dans cette étude, on va décliner le concept d' " ailleurs " non pas comme relevant de l'étranger, de l'exil ou de l'émigration au-delà des frontières, mais comme répression, déportation et prison. On considérera, donc, ces textes comme textes produits dans un ailleurs plus ou moins forcé, à l'intérieur de l'espace soviétique. En outre, on s'intéressera à l'écriture produite à l'intérieur de l'univers concentrationnaire, et non après le retour (comme la plupart des oeuvres que l'on connaît et qui sont devenues à juste titre populaires). Ce qui permet de classifier cette poésie comme poésie de l'ailleurs n'est donc pas seulement le sujet (poésie sur le Goulag), mais la dimension spatio-temporelle où elle a été créée (poésie du Goulag). Cette acception constitutive du concept d'" ailleurs " fait dériver une spécification secondaire: dans le cas où la littérature du Goulag est vue comme littérature de l'ailleurs, quelle est la relation entre la littérature des camps (" lagernaja literatura ") et la littérature de l'ailleurs comprise comme de l'émigration interne.

The paper introduces the new concept of "abandonology" as an aesthetic and documentary feature of a series of textes of contemporary russian and italian literature, and provides a complete theoretical framework for understanding literary textes concerned with "abandoned places" under a narrative, philosophical, cultural point of view, especially referring to the problem of Memory

L'« abandonologie » peut être définie comme un champ de recherche pluridisciplinaire qui porte sur des lieux abandonnés et déchus dont l'histoire est reconstruite à travers diverses formes de narration. Si l'étude des lieux abandonnés concerne, depuis longtemps, les domaines de l'ingénierie, de l'architecture, de l'archéologie, de l'histoire et de l'économie du territoire, l' abandonologie s'impose comme « science poétique » et transpose cette recherche du plan documentaire au plan esthétique et représentationnel. Le terme s'est répandu parallèlement à la parution du roman italien Cade la terra de C. Pellegrino (Giunti 2015). Comme en témoigne l'écrivain elle-même, il n'est pas né dans le milieu académique, mais a été créé par un enfant qui, un jour, dans une librairie, lui avait demandé de quoi elle s'occupait (« J'étais en librairie, en train de feuilleter un livre sur les ruines. – Qu'est ce que tu lis ? – me demanda-t-il. Je lui répondis, il resta un moment en silence. Après cela, assez satisfait : – Et alors, tu es une 'abandonologue' ?-») Le terme abandonologie a connu, dès lors, une remarquable diffusion médiatique et, bien que symboliquement lié au roman mentionné, a permis de regrouper une série de pratiques narratives existant déjà en un corpus homogène, couvrant ainsi un vide terminologique et conceptuel. L'apparition du terme a d'ailleurs eu pour effet de rendre plus visibles ces mêmes textes de la littérature européenne, en partant du principe que « tant que les choses n'ont pas de nom c'est comme si elles n'existaient pas », ce qui implique de devoir en définir les contours d'identification.

Durante gli anni di emigrazione trascorsi a Parigi, N. Evreinov scrisse un'opera di taglio filosofico molto ambiziosa per gli obiettivi che si poneva, tuttora rimasta inedita. Benché negletta dalla critica, essa si rivela di particolare importanza ai fini di una rico-struzione esaustiva dell' ...

Mythical Remainings in Russian Epic Songs. The Image of River in Bylinic Subjects

This essay aims to analyze the symbolic role of the river and its func on in the by- linic text, as a speci c element of early Slavic representa on of the cosmos in the epic tradi on, from more archaic narra ve plots and  gures, to more recent ones.
The survey is mainly conducted on the evidence provided by such byliny as Do- brynja i zmej, Aleša i Tugarin, Dunaj, Suchman and highlights how the analysis of rep- resenta on of natural space in the bylinic context is a precious key to understanding cosmological concep ons in the early east Slavic world. It also shows how these con- cep ons change, a er Rus’ was converted to Chris anity and the consequent transi-  on of represented con icts from a mythical to a historical plane.

The Research Project entitled “On both sides of the Iron Curtain: the cultures of dissent and the definition of European identity in the second half of the twentieth century between Italy, France and the USSR (1956-1991)” is financed by the State University of Florence. The project’s Scientific Chiefs are: Teresa Spignoli (Associate Professor – Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature) and Claudia Pieralli (Tenure Track Associate Professor – Slavic Studies/Russian Literature).

The research area includes the various forms of dissent culture that from the fifties onwards have concerned the European context, with particular regard to the comparison between Western and Eastern Europe, notably the Franco-Italian area and the Slavic one, (Soviet Russia, Belarus and Ukraine). These areas are characterized by the emergence of similar forms of protest against the cultural and political establishment, which express themselves in an antithetical but specular manner, in relation to the axis that separates the eastern bloc from the western one. The project aims to problematize the geocultural concept of Europe starting from its internal historical, social, and ethnocultural diversities, especially interested, with the end of the Second World War, in the West/East dividing axis, more than in the South/North axis, or the axis that divides Western Europe from Eastern Europe, included in the sphere of influence of the Soviet bloc.
Visit the Project's Web page:
www.culturedeldissenso.com

The Research Project entitled “On both sides of the Iron Curtain: the cultures of dissent and the definition of European identity in the second half of the twentieth century between Italy, France and the USSR (1956-1991)” is financed by the University of Florence. The project’s Scientific Chiefs are:
Teresa Spignoli (Associate Professor – Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature) and Claudia Pieralli (Tenure Track Associate Professor – Slavic Studies/Russian Literature).

The research area includes the various forms of dissent culture that from the fifties onwards have concerned the European context, with particular regard to the comparison between Western and Eastern Europe, notably the Franco-Italian area and the Slavic one, (Soviet Russia, Belarus and Ukraine). These areas are characterized by the emergence of similar forms of protest against the cultural and political establishment, which express themselves in an antithetical but specular manner, in relation to the axis that separates the eastern bloc from the western one. The project aims to problematize the geocultural concept of Europe starting from its internal historical, social, and ethnocultural diversities, especially interested, with the end of the Second World War, in the West/East dividing axis, more than in the South/North axis, or the axis that divides Western Europe from Eastern Europe, included in the sphere of influence of the Soviet bloc.

this article presents, for the first time to the italian reader, a critical overview of anna Barkova’s poetry, most of which was composed during the years of imprisonment in the gulag (from 1933 up to 1965 in her case). in consideration of the major critical acquisitions preminently in russian, the essay develops an overall formal analysis of some selected verses taken from different historical moments, enhancing the results of the present author’s archival prospections carried out on the Barkova funds. endowed with undisputable lyrical talent and a lashing ability for linguistic and imaginative creation, Barkova’s lyric work stands out as an unbreakable cry of testimony of a fierce historical era in russian and european history.

Mythical Remainings in Russian Epic Songs. The Image of River in Bylinic Subjects This essay aims to analyze the symbolic role of the river and its func on in the by- linic text, as a speci c element of early Slavic representa on of the cosmos in the epic tradi on, from more archaic narra ve plots and gures, to more recent ones. The survey is mainly conducted on the evidence provided by such byliny as Do- brynja i zmej, Aleša i Tugarin, Dunaj, Suchman and highlights how the analysis of rep- resenta on of natural space in the bylinic context is a precious key to understanding cosmological concep ons in the early east Slavic world. It also shows how these con- cep ons change, a er Rus’ was converted to Chris anity and the consequent transi- on of represented con icts from a mythical to a historical plane.

Il volume si propone di mappare le diverse forme di dissenso estetico-letterario sorte nell'Ovest e nell'Est europei nel periodo dal 1956 al 1991, come l’area francoitaliana e quella slavo-orientale (Russia, Bielorussia e Ucraina Sovietiche)

Цель настоящей работы – анализ корпуса поэтических текстов, возникших в условиях опыта “на грани” и объединенных общими пространственно-времен- ными и историческими параметрами, связанными с политическими преследова- ниями и пребыванием в заключении в эпоху советской власти. Т.е. созданных в условиях, которые я определяю как “зону”. Исследуемые произведения создавались не только собственно в лагере, но и в любом “заключении”, например в тюрьмах, которое предшествуют попаданию в Гулаг (следственные и пересыльные тюрьмы). Мое внимание сосредоточено на корпусе поэзии, появившейся во время пер- вых двух десятилетий политических репрессий в СССР т.е. на анализе системно отобранных образцов поэтических текстов, относящихся к трем различным пери- одам существования “зоны”: ленинскому (1919-1924), ранне сталинскому (1924- 1931) и периоду пика репрессий (1931-1939). Анализ, содержащий две части, одна из которых посвящена первому деся- тилетию советской власти, а вторая – тридцатым годам, строится на сопостави- тельном анализе подпольного поэтического творчества “зоны” с одной сторо- ны и официального (гулаговская и тюремная пресса) с другой. В работе сделана попытка описать каналы распространения созданной заключенными поэзии, ее формальные, тематические и психо-антропологические, в том числе и этногра- фические, особенности, а также этапы ее исторической эволюции. Исследование имеет целью, опираясь на новые методологические подходы (хронологические и этнографические критерии), наметить основные направления структурного ана- лиза текстов, созданных в условиях тюремного заключения жертвами советских политических репрессий и попытаться выделить отличительные

The present survey aims at creating the basis for an extensive study on poetry written by victims of political repressions in the whole area of Segregation in the Soviet Union: prisons, forced labour camps, Gulags and confinement. The research relies on evidence drawn from published and archive materials, concerning the 1918-1956 period. We propose a systematization of the corpus, based on a new methodology: the key-concept of ‘poetry of Zone’ as a literary track of testimony of political repression, which was synchronical to the imprisonment experience in the USSR.

The present book addresses a wide range of problems concerning the history of Eastern Slavic culture in its interaction with cultural models of Western Europe. This collective work is the final result of the French-Italian conference “Fratture e integrazioni tra Russia, mondo slavo orientale e Occidente. Storia e civiltà letteraria dal Medioevo all’epoca contemporanea” (University of Florence, April 16-17, 2015): the complexity of cultural relations between Russia, the Slavic East and the European West is analysed by enhancing the variety of points of view and by using different methodological approaches and perspectives provided by different fields of study. Here, new materials and new analytical methods are presented, useful for studying the complex interactions between the Western cultural tradition and the Eastern Slavic one from the Middle Ages to the present day. The “fractures” and “integrations” are identified through critical reading or rereading of texts, works and authors...

Starting with the 1950s, the European context saw the emergence of various movements of cultural dissent, which involved both western and eastern countries and led to forms of literary and artistic protest against the cultural and political establishment. In particular, underground movement - connected with the American scenario - and Neo-vanguard groups developed in Italy, France, and Germany, while the Soviet area was pervaded by the culture clandestinely disseminated by the Samizdat circuit. This contribution offers a comprehensive view of the multifaceted forms of literary, cultural, and artistic dissent considered by the essays collected here, with special attention to the differences between Western and Eastern areas. These two contexts, in fact, are addressed separately in the following sections: Neo-vanguard and contestation: the two forms of dissent in the western area and The kaleidoscopic planet of Soviet non-conformism: into, beyond and around the Samizdat .

Questa ricerca propone un’analisi integrale del pensiero estetico del regista, drammaturgo e teorico dell’arte Nikolaj Nikolaevič Evreinov. Il lavoro si incentra sull’analisi del trattato La rivelazione dell’arte, scritto a Parigi negli anni Trenta, che rappresenta la maggiore testimonianza delle ricerche in campo estetico dell’autore. Si offre così un collegamento tra aspetti noti del pensiero teatrale di Evreinov, relativi al periodo delle avanguardie in Russia, e altri, di carattere più ampio, rimasti a lungo preclusi alla conoscenza. Attraverso spaccati di storia del teatro russo del primo Novecento e riflessioni che toccano la critica testuale, la storia del pensiero estetico e della critica russa, emerge, sullo sfondo della cultura espressa dall’emigrazione russa post-rivoluzionaria, la complessa figura di un artista che, da intellettuale, entra in dialogo con la tradizione culturale europea occidentale. Questo libro intende così restituire visibilità, oltre che una completezz...