Russian Romanticism

В статье рассматривается малоизученная тема закономерностей изображения литовцев и событий и деятелей истории ВКЛ в драматических, поэтических и прозаических произведениях русских писаетелей, также связь литовской темы в русской литературе с доминирующей в царской России идеологией, официальной историографией и эстетикой романтизма.

Boris Godounov de Pouchkine met en scène l’idée de performativité (qui désigne le fait que la parole puisse constituer un acte) à travers non pas une, mais deux figures susceptibles de s’exprimer en souverain : l’une d’elle, celle de Boris Godounov, échoue sur la question de la performativité, puisque le seul acte de langage qu’elle accomplit véritablement dans la pièce est de l’ordre de l’aveu involontaire – et ce défaut apparaît immédiatement, contrairement à Richard III dont l’efficacité performative s’inverse lorsqu’il sort de la sphère immanente pour entrer dans celle de la justice rétributive d’ordre divin. L’autre figure pouchkinienne, celle de Grigori Otrépiev, rejoue l’acte de langage canonique décrit par Austin, celui du baptême, et même le fait qu’il s’agisse d’un auto-baptême et une usurpation n’empêche pas cette parole d’être caractérisée par sa grande efficacité. Ainsi, les deux trajectoires, descendante et ascendante, que suivent Boris et Gricha dans l’intrigue, sont aussi fonction de la performativité que leur parole est capable d’incarner. À travers une comparaison entre la nature et les manifestations de cette parole performative chez les deux figures du pouvoir dans la pièce de Pouchkine, cet article propose donc de montrer la manière dont le théâtre peut exposer les mécanismes du pouvoir sans pour autant devenir un instrument au service de celui-ci.

The article tries to rationalise Lermontov’s Demon as a personified projection of melancholy, which Romanticism turned into a metaphysical concept. Because of the representative character of Schelling’s philosophy about the perspective of Romanticism, and also because of the recognised idea correspondence with Lermontov’s conception of the inseparability of good and evil, we suggest a thesis binding Schelling’s concept of the ambivalent nature of the absolute with the ambivalent nature of melancholy, inherent in Lermontov character’s ethos.

Диссертация посвящена описанию рецепции французской «неистовой словесности» в русской критике и литературе 1830-х гг. Предметом исследования стала русская критика и литература 1830-х гг., обращавшиеся к «неистовым» сюжетам и мотивам.

The aim of the dissertation is to describe how French «littérature frénétique» was received in Russian critique and literature in 1830s. The object of research is Russian critique and literature of 1830s that addressed «frénétique» topics and motives.

Translator's note: Among the most technically accomplished of responses to the Patriotic War of 1812, Vasily Zhukovsky's “Singer in the Kremlin” evokes the glories of the Russian past. In his Vasily Zhukovsky's Romanticism and the Emotional History of Russia (Northwestern 2015), Ilya Vinitsky writes that in writing patriotic poems, “Zhukovsky set himself the daunting task of becoming a national poet.... not by turning away from a subjective point of view, but rather by maximizing it, taking his sentimental lyricism to a state of mystical ecstasy.” Part of a trilogy, this extended paean to Alexander I established Zhukovsky as the leading proponent of the Romantic Movement in Russia (see his free translations of Goethe, Schiller, Byron, Thomas Gray, etc.) Through his great influence at court, he acted as an impresario for the developing movement, including as the executor of Pushkin's literary estate and by promoting the career of Nikolai Gogol. This poem's scale, formal elegance, and rhythmic measures are, I think, remarkable. A full Oratorio, it begs to be set to music. For our own historical moment, marked by a resurgence of nationalism, it offers non-Russian readers a perspective into the eternal Russian formula of union of “Nation, Tsar, and God”.

My main focus in this article is on the author-narrator’s status as a character and on the way in which his characterization compares to that of the hero Onegin.  This study expands the inquiry into how this character’s unique construction reflects Pushkin’s experimentation with genre and poetic language.

Рассматривается формирование поэтической концептосферы одного из первых русских байронистов, И.И. Козлова, в аспекте
восприятия и отражения образов Италии, которые, в силу ассоциативной и типологической соотнесенности с родным про-
странством, родиной души, творческого гения, одним своим появлением в переводах и оригинальных произведениях поэта
способны генерировать дополнительные художественно-эстетические смыслы.

http://romanticismi-rivistadelcrier.dlls.univr.it/index.php/crier/article/view/5/12

Il saggio analizza la polisemia della figura lunare nella poesia romantica russa, che dispone di due distinte parole per indicare l’astro notturno: una luna-mesjac di genere e attributi maschili e proveniente dalla lingua del folklore slavo, e una luna-lunà femminile di ascendenza greco-latina che finirà per imporsi in Russia anche nella lingua quotidiana. Le scelte lessicali e di topoi poetici lunari hanno risvolti complessi e i due termini non sono quasi mai intercambiabili

This paper focuses on two early poems by Russian Romantic poet and literary scholar Stepan Shevyryov (1806—1864), PETROGRAD (1829) and EPISTLE TO A. S. PUSHKIN (1830).  The role of 'elemental,' 'natural' imagery is discussed in relation to a myth of the 18th-century Russia put forward by Shevyryov.    For that purpose the original, unpublished versions of both poems are consulted.  Their flawed publications and republications are surveyed and possible ideological motifs behind their editors' work are disclosed.  Shevyryov's myth of the 18th century Russia and his approach to country's nature is further contextualized through poet's inability to apply Winckelmann's vision of Classical Antiquity to Russia's past and a brief comparison between Shevyryov's worldview and American Romanticism of the 1830's.

This article examines Pushkin's "The Gypsies" as a case study of the changing status of tragedy in the Romantic period. Arguing that "The Gypsies" is a narrative of displacement in which Pushkin traces the failures of the Greek Revolution and, more broadly, European liberalism to the Romantic ideology of Rousseau and his followers, it shows how Pushkin challenged Rousseau's depiction of the noble, unenlightened savage and advanced the idea that all men are vulnerable to the same passions and fates. Moreover, it goes on to show that while Pushkin sought to stylize his poem after the works of Greek tragedy, in its emphasis on misfortune from within and the universal, destructive nature of the passions, the tragic vision expressed in the work can be traced back to Racine. The "open" world of Romanticism meets the limits imposed by Racinian tragedy. Overall, "The Gypsies" is presented as a work that mixes critique and commemoration, marking the entrance of tragedy into Pushkin's poetic vision.

Jonatan Meir (Ben Gurion University): "Haskalah and Western Esotericism"

Monday 15th December

The lecture will focus on the physician and poet Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner (18 September 1786 – 21 February 1862) as well as on some still underestimated phenomena within the broader context of the European Enlightenment. A fresh look will be given in particular on the hidden boundaries between the representatives of the Jewish movement Haskalah and the contemporary trends of Western Esotericism.

Cet article constitue une analyse de la « nouvelle artistique » « Le Peintre » écrite par l’écrivain romantique Vladimir Odoevskij en 1839 et traditionnellement interprétée, à l’instar l’ensemble du corps des « nouvelles artistiques » romantiques et post-romantiques, comme une démonstration qu’il est impossible de réaliser des valeurs artistiques supérieures dans le monde ordinaire. Or, l’article propose de relire à nouveaux frais ce texte typique, en utilisant la grille de lecture élaborée au croisement des sciences sociales et de la critique littéraire dans l’étude d’autres littératures européennes : cette méthode suggère que l’interprétation de tels textes a été longtemps conditionnée par le support sur lequel ces œuvres parvenaient au lecteur, mais qu’un retour au contexte originel de publication permet de les considérer d’une manière nouvelle. Dans cette perspective, il devient ainsi possible de lire la « nouvelle artistique » composée par Odoevskij, non comme une forme de désillusion envers les idéaux romantiques, mais comme la seule manière de les maintenir et de les diffuser.

This paper offers an analysis of the « artist story » « The Painter », written by the Romantic writer Vladimir Odoevskij in 1839: this short story is usually interpreted as are all the genre of the Romantic and post-Romantic “artist stories” and considered a demonstration that it is impossible to realize superior artistic values in the ordinary world. This paper applies to Odoevskij’s short story a new way of reading of such well-known texts, using the frame constructed in collaboration between social sciences and literary criticism in the studies of other European literatures: such a method suggests that, during long years, the interpretation of theses texts has proceeded from the material support on which these works were read by the modern public, but that returning to the original conditions of publication helps reading them anew. In this perspective, it becomes possible to consider the “artist story” composed by Odoevskij, not as a form of disillusion towards Romantic ideals, but as the only way to perpetuate them and make them public.

В статье предлагается анализ «художественной повести» «Живописца», написанной романтическим писателем Владимиром Одоевским в 1839 году. Такой рассказ обычно интерпретируется точно так, как интерпретируется весь жанр романтической и пост-романтической "художественной повести" : она считается демонстрация того, что невозможно реализовать превосходные художественные ценности в обычном мире. Статья предлагает изпользовать о рассказе Одоевского новую методику чтения таких хорошо известных текстов, построенную на распутье между общественными науками и литературной критики в исследованиях других европейских литературах : в этом кадре полагается, что в течение долгих лет, интерпретация таких текстов была тесно связанной с материальними обстановками современной публикации таких рассказов в книге и, что возвращаться к исходным условиям публикации поможет читать их заново. С этой точки зрения делается возможно рассмотреть художестенную повесть написанную Одоевским, не как форму разочарования к романтическим идеалам, но как единственный способ их увековечить и рассеить.

The essay narrates some of the key-cases of Russian Romantic insanity during the Modern period. European transgressive πρᾶξις of Romantic madness is further comparatively explicated by analyzing Friedrich Hölderlin's perplexed and ambivalent oeuvre. What is in common between Hölderlin and some of his fellow Russian contemporaries? Who were these Russian "Hölderlins"?