Literary criticism

The article focuses on the notebooks of M. M. Zoshchenko. The materials from the museums of St. Petersburg, IRLI (the Institute of Russian Literature), and, first of all, of the funds of the State Literary Museum «XXth century». M. M. Zoshchenko’s working notebooks, pocket-books are undoubtedly the most important source for the scientific biography of the writer. They represent the test-bench or the testing ground for the development, masks, plots, a range of techniques in the course of M. M. Zoshchenko’s oeuvre.

The article analyzes the circumstances of fiction and theoretical works by S. D. Krzhizhanovsky being banned for publication at the end of the 1950s due to censorship. For the first time unpublished internal reviews of the author’s works from the archives of the publishing house «Sovietsky pisatel» are drawn on, as well as the materials of the committee on the writer’s literary legacy, and the letters of his friends (RGALI – Russian State Archive of Literature and Art).

In this article we review Siberian sources of Vs. Ivanov’s story The Running Isle (Begstvuyushchiy ostrov). For example, there is a story about Pokrovsky Nunnery of the Old Believers which is reflected in the works of Siberian writers of the early ХХth century; and the Russian folk utopian legend about Belovodye. The author solves the problem of genuine peasant power by comparing the new government and the folk utopian ideal.

A. N. Pypin helped many beginning writers to identify their path. B. B. Glinsky was among them. Significant biographical facts related to the history of the writers’ relationships are revealed in understudied printed sources and archive materials introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time.

The article considers one of the satellites of N. V. Gogol’s comedy The Government Inspector in which an important role is played by the phenomenon of the author’s cunning. All the phases and techniques of the author’s play are consistently revealed; they are aimed at offering the readers a new interpretation of the famous comedy.

The article is devoted to German motives in The Gamblers by N. V. Gogol and their connection with the ways of portraying a fraudulent environment. The author specifically focuses on one of the characters – the sharpie Krugel and the card pack called Adelaida Ivanovna. Moreover, these observations allow to draw conclusions on the ‘background thoughts’ of the author about human nature, hidden in comic dialogues of The Gamblers.

The article studies the formation and development of the Russian musical theatre of the XVIIIth century. It focuses on the opera oeuvre of V. A. Pashkevich; close links between the Russian literature and music are traced in it; the major typological features of the Russian comic opera are singled out.

The article considers the protagonist image in Memoires by Mlle de Montpensier, related to the description of her life in exile after the Fronde events. The author analyzes how the royal disfavor impacts the changes in the views and inner world of the heroine. Comparing the text extracts written in exile with those written after it was over allows to show how the introspection deepens, and to draw the conclusion on the meaning of the memoire genre in the fate of the disgraced princess.

The article discusses the important episodes of the history of Saratov philological school associated with the names of Yu. N. Chumakov, A. P. Skaftymov, E. I. Pokusaev.