Literary criticism

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of two interpretations of Pavel Pestel’s personality and fate in the literature of the late Khrushchev thaw. The contribution of the peer writers to the liberation of cultural and historical memory from offi cial dictatorship is discussed, the basis of their ideological similarity is shown: this is the awareness of the fatal problem of morality and revolution (Zorin).

The article analyzes the correspondence of E. G. Polonskaya and K. A. Fedin, members of the literary group Serapion Brothers, formed in Petrograd in 1921. The short but bright period of the existence of the association is still of interest to many researchers. Particularly relevant is the study of documentary sources, which make it possible to fi ll in the factual gaps in the history of both the Serapion fraternity itself and the relationships of its individual members. The author of the article draws on previously unpublished materials from the archive of K. A.

The article analyzes the poem by Nikolai Zabolotsky A City in the Steppe, which was written by the poet after returning from exile in 1946. The poem unfolds before the reader a grand panorama of the Kazakh city of Karaganda. The city appears as a kind of epic and even mythological City that has replaced the timeworn era. It is shown that there are several metaphysical layers in the plot of the poem: along with the description of the real city of Karaganda, the biblical symbolism of both the Old and New Testaments is present in the text.

The article proposes a new version of the cycle-forming organization of “Little Tragedies” by A. S. Pushkin, after a brief excursion through the already existing cycle-forming concepts of a group of scenes and plays united in Russian culture under the non-author’s general name “Little Tragedies”. The intra-textual situation of unexpected, spontaneous inspiration of the central characters of the plays included in the cycle is put forward as a binding compositional element.

Sophie Kinsella’s «Confessions of a Shopaholic» (2000) is looked into as a genre model of «chic-lit», and the main character is analyzed as a psychological and sociological study of the phenomenon of shopo‑ holism.

In the article the comparative analysis of the original Russian po‑ ems from the cycle «A Part of Speech» by Joseph Brodsky and their author translations is given. The aim of the analysis is to reveal those principles which J. Brodsky used at the early stage of his author translations.

In the article the principles of the philosophical and historical analysis of the contemporary political situation (First World War, the Revolution of the year 1917) in M.A. Aldanov’s book «Armageddon» (1918) are singled out. The author of the article attempts to view Aldanov’s skepticism as a method of experiencing reality that confronts the dogmatic thinking.

On the example of the literary activity of the Futurists, Imagists, Zaumniks the peculiarities of modernist and avant-garde solution to the problem of the national are investigated

The subject of this article is the analysis of the complexity of literary texts perception in the beginning of the XX-th century, the epoch of change of a cultural paradigm. The author considers such new lines of literary process as «the fashionable writer», change of a publishing policy and type of reader’s perception.

In the article the intentional and unintentional forms of the author’s presence in Gogol’s comedy «Players» are described; the correlation of the author’s intention in this single act play with the comedies «Revisor» and «Marriage».