Browse

Despite the exponential growth of transcultural/ translingual studies in recent decades, phenomenon of literary translingualism is still open to question. Specifically, it has been suggested that translingual practices in literature are equivalent to a “cultural bomb” that make minority ethnic groups forget their “names”. Translinguism is as old as the mythical Babylon itself. But if in the usual communication the translingual practices are evaluated rather positively (as the strategy of cooperation with t...

The corpus of literary texts, where the Jewish theme is stated to a greater or lesser extent (Old Testament imagery, characters-Jews, facts from Jewish history, etc.), is considered the Jewish Text. In any national literature, the Jewish theme demonstrates the attitude towards Jews in a certain national environment rather than the specifics of Jewry. In Latvian literature, because of a special historical and cultural situation, there develops an original Jewish text with the structural elements changed under the i...

Modern humanitarian knowledge has increasingly paid attention to axiological aspects of human life. In search of moral values of the present, it makes sense to address to the cultural heritage of the previous eras. Restoration Comedy, emerged as a reaction to six-year puritanical dictatorship, followed by the restoration of the monarchy, is of special interest, in this sense. The peculiar attitude towards the moral standards found the reflection in comedies of manners of the Restoration era is, certainly, related ...

Art is inter-medial, its internal borders are permeable; due to this quality of semantic “frontiers” there is a constant dialogue between such different spheres of art as painting, poetry, architecture, music, cinema, and new forms of media relevant to the modern era. This work is an attempt to interpret "visible" (but not graphic-visual) poetry on the example of lyrical story by the Kazakh poet Olzhas Suleimenov, who has been writing in Russian for many years of his creative biography. The main attention is p...

Cultural trauma appears when a group of people feels they were made some horrible event experience leading to indelible traces in their collective consciousness, leaving an imprint in their memories forever and changing their identity irreversibly. During the 20th century, first in the Western societies but soon also worldwide, people constantly were stating that they had been traumatized by some experience, event, act of violence or frightening, or just by sharp and sudden and sometimes even not very hostile expe...

The aim of the study is to perform and present the synchronic and diachronic analysis of the Russian writer’s, Anton Chekhov’s (1860 – 1904), reception in Latvia in four most significant cultural historical periods that determined the establishment and formation of the writer’s “literary reputation” (I. Rozanov) in Latvia. The material of the study is essays, dedication poetry, translations, and staged performances to trace the borrowings and direct influences that form the “outer” and “inner” rec...

The novel about the Chechen War “Asan” (“????”, 2008), where the concept “betrayal” has a structure-forming function, is the most significant text among the ones written by V. Makanin during the past decades. Key lexemes (it is repeatedly emphasized by the author himself) explain what is happening in the society: “to turn in” – “to betray” – “to sell”. The novel “Two Sisters and Kandinsky” (“??? ?????? ? ??????????”, 2011) constructs the concept “betrayal” in the context of ...

The early 20th century was to become a significant milestone not only for the development of relations between Russia and Yakutia, but also for the convergence of Russian and Yakut people, largely through Russian literature. The beginning of the 20th century, as the time for the Russian-language literature appearance in Yakutia, was a difficult period, given the fact that the beginning of the century was a time for the political change of eras and ideals, the time to search for political, social, and spiritual val...

Autobiographicity is a peculiar form of writing based on the personal life experience of the author of a literary work reflecting its facts and events. Limits of the autobiographical character of a literary work are not easy to establish; its investigation requires deep knowledge of the biographical facts of the respective author that is drawn from the analysis of documents of extra-textual reality (letters, contemporariesВ’ memoirs and evaluations, reviews of the literary work, the biographical information provid...

The theory of social treaty is one of the basic socio-political doctrines of the Enlightenment in Europe and in Russia. Different models of relations between the authorities and society are reflected in the treatises of European and Russian thinkers of the time. However, the concept of the social treaty represents the constantly changing ideological construct, "a tacit agreement", created, sought and spoken in various texts of culture. The author intents to observe the odic poetry of the XVIII century, the field o...

Division into periods of D.H. LawrenceВ’s creative activity mainly is based on his biographical facts, but we should find a point of his departure from the apprenticeship, from the traditions of the English novel of the 19th century. In many respects the author of Sons and Lovers departs from traditions, although he does not break with them completely. Lawrence creates a synthetic genre, combining the structure of a Bildungsroman and a KГјnstlerroman, giving his protagonist some autobiographical traits. Buthe does...

During my numerous research and teaching stays at the universities in Great Britain, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria I was asked to speak about Czech independent literature which existed under the communist regime (1948-1989). As an author of a monograph about Czech literary underground (1999) and many studies on this topic, I expected that it would be easy for me. Nevertheless, I soon came to the conclusion that translation of basic terms connected with independent culture is not only a matter of linguistic ability ...

One of the important features of the contemporary literary process is an actualization of a variety of transgressive or hybrid phenomena. In this connection, the novel “Laurus” (2012) by Eugene Vodolazkin is not an exception. Expressed criticism is sometimes not satisfied with the discreteness of E. Vodolazkin’s text, its peculiar mosaic, explicit eclectic mixture of semantic, speech, structural and genre elements. It seems that these elements have a deeper meaning. The article analyzes the semantics of the b...

Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) is along with Jaroslav HaВљek and Milan Kundera one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century, his works are translated to 27 foreign languages. The present paper pays attention especially to his texts written in the early 1950s when Hrabal started to use his specific narrative style that combines modernist impulses with down-to-earth tall tales inspired by the milieu of Czech pubs. In that time Hrabal was in a close and friendly contact with much younger Egon Bondy, a poet and p...

Study deals with the thematisation of visual deprivation (blindness) in the picture books, which are (in connection with its designation both as for intact as well as for handicapped reader) labeled with attributes “accessible” and “inclusive”. As illustrated in creative practice, such books are characteristic by an emphasis on its sensual-concrete realization (“artefacticity”) and subsequently by an experimental semiotic connection between verbal (literary) and visual (illustrative) component. Study a...

The article analyzes the mythological systems, that had a significant impact on the outlook of Mikhail Bulgakov as the author of the great novel В‘The Master and MargaritaВ’, the iconic literary work in Russia of XX-of XXI centuries. The article criticizes the tradition of literary studies, where the philosophical context of the novel В‘The Master and MargaritaВ’ is interpreted exclusively in the context of Russian philosophical tradition. The article identifies three semantic constructs of the novel, reveals thei...

Gothic fiction of the 18th and the early 19th centuries has caused a significant influence not only on the mass literature but also on the works of many forthcoming generations of writers and poets. These authors created an atmosphere of anxiety, fear and uncertainty in their works by adopting a range of Gothic romance novel creative methods and techniques. The present article attempts to give an overview of the Gothic romance novel tradition in the 19th century American literature. Charles Brockden Brown, one of ...

Presented study synthetises the research focused on the portrayal of a man in the literature for children and youth in Slovakia. Material basis for the research is both original as well as translated prosaic production published in Slovakia since mid- 19th century until 1989 (fall of the communist regime). The research findings are about to answer the following questions: 1. what is the mutual proportional representation of different types of handicap (social disadvantage and medical handicap; i.e. physical impair...

This article highlights the existence and importance of the historical aspect of Slovaks' national existence in Lowland, having specific regard to their first historical cultural and literary impulses in Nadlak. It stresses the self identifying and mediatory function of written word and its historical connection in the aspect of minority existence of (for the most part) their own development context. On the background of beneficial bibliographical attributes and theorems it mainly displays concrete interpretive an...

The purpose of this analysis is to critically examine an experience of perceiving a literary text and to provide a special approach to make the perception deeper. To raise awareness intended to introduce the reader to Isaak Babel’s “Red Cavalry” artistic text a new way of receiving the text has been proposed. A bike by night event of the educational project “Velonotte International” in Sergiyev Posad, Russia, highlights the importance of facilitation of the receiver entering into a relationship with the a...

The given research is focused on the study of the book by a contemporary Latvian writer and journalist Inese Zandere titled “The Ship’s Log Book” (Ku?a žurn?ls), which was published in 2016. The author of the research views it from the perspective of hybrid texts and analyses the shift of genre boundaries between poetic texts and journalism. The subtitle of the book is “Notes, essays, excerpts, letters, conversations”. In the title of the book a lexeme denoting a familiar document is used – a log book,...

In this paper I am going to focus on the work of the Czech writer Karel Capek, who lived in the first half of the 20th century, as it was perceived by the Czech exile literary critics and Western scholars specialized in Czech studies. This author enjoyed great popularity in Britain in the period between the two world wars, but his works had gradually fallen into oblivion over time, perhaps except for his play RUR, which enriched the English language with the word robot, and the novel War with the Newts. I am going...

The article deals with one of the eternal issues of the theory and practice of literary translation: “What happens to a literary original after it has been translated?” The answer to this question could be probably found through interdisciplinary approach which takes into consideration not only exclusively translation categories and literary translation traditions but also broad literary, cultural and political contexts of the target text. The subject of the present research is the experience and results of fo...

The article deals with the scholarly edition of 19th-20th cc. Georgian writersВ’ epistolary legacy (thirty-volume set), initiated by our scientific team from 2010, the modern research methods for textual and editorial studies, we guide with in preparing the volumes, our editorial strategy, based on which traditional attitudes and modern technologies have been combined with each other in research process, it became possible, by using computational technologies, to read several indecipherable texts of the writers, u...

In the history of Russian literature names of F.M. Dostoevsky and M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin stand side by side and at the same time opposing each other. One of the painful issues, points of attraction and repulsion, points of consolidation and confrontation between the artistic worlds of the writers is their understanding of the phenomenon of power. They got their first impressions about the type of power relations predominating in Russian society at about the same time, in their youth, when they both took first ste...

In modern criticism, V. Nabokov is revered as one of postmodernism “godfathers”. In the texts of a number of iconic contemporary writers (from A. Bitov up to O. Slavnikova and L. Ulitskaya) the influence of “Lolita” author’s creative works is highly significant. L. Ulitskaya never attributed herself to the postmodernist trend; on the contrary, she insisted that aesthetics under the sign “post” is becoming obsolete. Such experience of the author's self-identification beyond the post-modernism's aesthet...

The article is devoted to the philosophical interpretation of the specifics of creativity of A.S. Pushkin, the famous poet and writer, one of the geniuses of the world culture. Pushkin didnВ’t leave his own philosophical legacy. However, his works inspired many philosophers, who understood its philosophical depths. This article examines the works of A. S. Pushkin through the prism of analysis of the creative heritage by the Russian philosophers abroad G. P. Fedotov, N.A.Berdyaev and I.A. Ilyin, as well as modern R...

In the history of Sakha literature the names «Yksykylekh Ylyksyj» - A.Y. Kulakovsky, «Alampa» – A.I. Sofronov, «Bilatian Oiuunuskay» – P.A. Oyunsky have a great meaning. The most important thing in their heritage is the distinctive vision of the world, reflected in the unique symbolic systems of their poetry, which confirm eastern sources in the national artistic culture of a northern Turkish branch – the Sakha nation. In poetic works of the early literary traditions we have the presence of folk beginn...

The article is dedicated to the problem of the creative act, specifics of creativity in interpretation of the Russian philosopher I. A. Ilyin (1883-1954). I. A. Ilyin brings new ideas in the esthetics, developing regulations on specifics of the creative act, considering a problem from the perspective of the creating artist and the perceiving recipient. Each artist possesses his own vision of the outside world and of the inner world of soul and has to deepen his creative act and keep within plots and subjects ident...

The literal translation of “queer theory” might be considered as a “theory of oddity”, or “theory of strangeness”. Initially negatively perceived designation became the official theory name in the second half of the 20th century, which deals dominantly with a marginal – in order to analyse the mainstream cultural construct. Although the “queer reading” in the Western-European society plays a significant role still not only within the area of literature theory, but also in politics, culture, econo...

The research is significant because although N.A. ZabolotskyВ’s creative work has always been the focus of scrupulous attention, it would not be exactly correct to state that all aspects of his creative output were comprehensively studied due to the exclusive unfathomable versatility of masterpieces produced by such a great literary artist. So there are a great number of uninvestigated questions, demanding an in-depth study and thorough analysis. The theme of music in N.A. ZabolotskyВ’s poetry, the question about ...

Aspazija (Elza Rozenberga, 1965–1943) is a founder of Latvian women’s writing. She had an essential role in the formation of Latvian contemporary literature in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. At that time, it was modernity that determined social and economic processes in the world. That time was characterized by the deconstruction of the patriarchal model of life and the stratification of the society. Industrialization and urbanization determined the overlap, transformation and hybridization of ethnic a...

The issue of relations among national and regional literatures is closely bound with the concept of national literary canon. National literary canon is a system for studying and segmenting authors who belong to a national literature. National literary canon is formed by writers and their literary works. A canon has a marked nucleus. In Latvia “Latvian Cultural Canon” was compiled in 2007 as a treasure trove that contains the most important cultural achievements of all times including also the branch of literat...

The Revolution of 1905 and its successive events had an essential impact on the development of literature – both themes and form. In Latvia, the Revolution started with demonstration on 13 January 1905 protesting against „Bloody Sunday” in Saint Petersburg (January 9, 1905). In both events a significant role was played by intellectuals. In Russia, the attitude of intellectuals towards the events of 1905 mostly caused the dissidence that would lead to the tragic events of the October 1917 and the Civil War. Th...

R?dolfs BlaumanisВ’ personality as well as literary works created by him lay a firm foundation for the Latvian classical literature. WriterВ’s views and texts reflect the rural and urban environment of the end of the 19th c. and the beginning of the 20th century, focusing on the juxtaposition of townspeople and countrymen, the patriarchal and industrial life rhythms, addressing family and marriage problems, as well as exploring the relationships between the Latvians, Baltic Germans, Russians, and Jews. Folklore is...

Short stories and novels by Waclaw Sieroszewski were periodically reviewed in critical and bibliographic sections of the leading Russian magazines and journals of the time: “??????? ?????” (Russkaja mysl’) (Moscow), “??????? ?????????” (Russkoe bogatstvo), “??? ?????” (Mir Bozhij), “?????” (Zhizn'), “????? ?????” (Novoe slovo), “??????? ??????” (Vestnik znanija) (all - St.Petersburg) and others. The most intensively the works of the Polish writer were published and reviewed in the period f...

This paper analyzes the problem of visual representation of "moon landscapes" in the poetic heritage of the French poet-symbolist Paul Verlaine. The appeal of poets and other artists of XIX century to the nocturne demonstrated new possibilities of the author's statement in the text characterized as synthetic, as a text in which different languages of art are intertwined. It declared a polycode method of representation, in which the symbolism of twilight and melancholic existence fixed the new metaphysics of the ni...

Disability studies as an independent branch of social sciences and humanities was established and initially developed in English-speaking countries (the USA, Great Britain, Canada) and at the end of the 20th century coincided with the contemporary topicalities of sociology, philosophy, feminism, post-structural criticism and the theory of national minorities (this issue has been considered from various perspectives by Miles Beauchamp, Wendy Chung, Alijandra Mogilner, Ashutosh Singh, Viktorija Sukovataja, Svetlana ...

The paper presents an analysis of the drama Die Rettungslosen (The Hopeless) by a philosopher and writer Susanne Schmida-Wöllersdorfer (1894-1981) who came from Byst?ice pod Hostýnem in Moravian Wallachia (The Czech Republic). A recently documented literary estate of the author provides an extensive and unique corpus of texts – remarkable dramas, lyric poetry, essays, and esoteric texts, in the form of manuscripts and typescripts, serving among other things as a proof of the existence of what can already be te...

The last great poem written by T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, offers a complete vision of his philosophical and poetical mind. Beginning with his first questioning poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, going through Gerontion and The Waste Land, with their expectations and prophecies, and advancing into the poems after conversion (Ash-Wednesday, The Ariel Poems) where the questions receive answers and the prophecies, fulfillment, the main themes and symbols of this last poem develop their power of revelation...

Doubleness is one of the most spread artistic methods of constructing a personality in European culture, which has a rich tradition. It received a special universal status in the era of Late Romanticism. In Romanticism, doubleness is an embodiment of a tragically incomplete breakthrough of a man to the eternally beautiful and perfect in those times, when the world started to be perceived as terrible and hopeless. Modernity presented a specific variation of Romantic doubleness; a double of the turn of the 19th – ...

The paper analyses the reception of the Irish-born British writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) in Latvia following the translations of his works into Latvian and the most vivid expressions in Latvian authors’ creative writing. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the poetics of cross-cultural influences in Latvia was very diverse: one of the most striking being the aesthetic vector marked by the crucial influence of Wilde’s personality and his literary heritage. The dialogue held between Latvian national a...

In my paper, I will focus on the reception of Vaclav HavelВ’s plays among Czech literary critics who lived in exile. Among others, it was Igor Hajek who analysed them in his two treatises, in a review of the collection of plays related to the character of Ferdinand Vanek. Igor Hajek (1931-1995), a Czech exile literary critic, belongs to personalities who have played a significant role in the presentation of Czech literature abroad. He lived in British emigration since 1969 and his name in Czechoslovakia was on the...

The perception of Holocaust in the cultural sphere of Latvia is a peculiar segment of social memory. This topic has been expanded upon in researches of Didzis B?rzi?š. Within the framework of the topic, the opposition ours – theirs, we – them is realized, i.e. the events of the Second World War are understood and evaluated from various points of view. In this context, the role of literature in the evaluation of the historic events becomes topical. The paper examines peculiarities of the reflection of the topi...

Problem of extremism in modern society is one of the most important, because thanks to modern level of technical development, borders and distances start to be very relative definitions, and humanity still havenВ’t worked out mechanisms of painless coexistence in the situation of open wide borders. Modern Russian prose gives rich material for regarding and classification of theme of extremism. Being largely a mirror of the society, literature allows to select and analyze its most evident and painful appearance. We...