The article examines the formation of Akhmatova’s authority as a researcher of Pushkin’s work; attention is focused on the perception of her first article “Pushkin’s Last Fairy Tale.” Information is provided on the first reactions that the study received during the discussion following her presentation “On the sources of ‘The Tale of the Golden Cockerel’.” Three chronological stages of the article’s reception are considered: academic scholars in the second half of the 1930s either agreed with Akhmatova’s ideas or recognized her merit in discovering the source of the fairy tale (a novel by W. Irving), but categorically did not accept biographical interpretation. In the second half of the 1940s, after the resolution “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad,” critics proved the inconsistency of Akhmatova’s research by pointing to a foreign source. Finally, in the late 1950s and 1960s, review texts about Pushkin and Akhmatova certainly accepted her research achievements. Akhmatova’s articles were always welcomed in the foreign press, including in the newspaper articles by V.F. Khodasevich “Akhmatova as a Pushkinist” and I.L. Tartak “Akhmatova, Pushkin and Washington Irving,” which are being fully republished in this article for the first time.
For the first time, the article examines the artistic and aesthetic peculiarities and features of the functioning of kitga in Tatar poetry of the early 20th century, which provided a clearer and deeper understanding of the development of the national literary genre system. It is revealed that in the works of Tatar literary classics, the kitga functions as a work in which the genre dominant shifts inward and gives the works a summative character in relation to the poets’ earlier creative output. G. Tukay does not always adhere to the normative monorhyme, resorting to repeated throughrhymes with a radif, as well as to masnavi (aa, bb, cc) and ghazal (aa, ba, ca) rhyming schemes. A new type of lyricism generates a multidimensional artistic situation and, consequently, the multi-genre nature of the works; the lyrical plot is driven by semantic antitheses and contrasts. In the lyrics of Derdmand, who also does not always adhere to the normative monorhyme, two types of kitga are distinguished: those that explore archetypal situations of human life, characterized by allegory and semantic complexity, and those describing unique situations of private life. Sh. Babich creates modernist works in which the kitga is recreated in an unconventional form, preserving distinct conceptual and thematic genre complexes. The works of minor poets reproduce the genre’s archetype while simultaneously dismantling the system of features inherent to its classical examples, reflecting the marginalization of the kitga and its loss of significance.
The article explores a comparative analysis of M. Lermontov’s The Demon and Abay’s Shaitan from the perspective of axiological literary studies. Abay’s work has not previously been compared with Lermontov’s poem, and the question of whether Shaitan is a translation or an independent creation remains unresolved. The study aims to identify the specific interpretations of the demonic image in both poems. Component and discourse analyses are applied to define the structure of the concept and its axiological transformations. The findings suggest that Shaitan should be viewed as an autonomous work rather than a translation. While Abay draws on Lermontov’s motifs, he gives the image a new meaning: Lermontov’s Demon is a fallen angel and ruler of the earth, whereas Abay’s Shaitan is merely a tempter who has ostensibly assumed an angelic form, devoid of absolute power. Abay’s approach emphasizes not literal translation but cultural and value transformation within the Kazakh worldview and Islamic tradition, creating a cultural-axiological interpretation. Thus, Shaitan becomes a distinct artistic work, demonstrating the key principles of axiological literary studies: value transformation, cultural adaptation, and orientation toward the Kazakh reader’s axiosphere.
Russian Silver Age culture appropriates Paris as a mythopoetic and cultural-symbolic locus, encompassing two mutually reversible hypostases: the cradle of Modernity, bearing the spirit of Revolution, Liberty, and creativity, grounded in the centuries-old Latin culture, and the international movement of Modernist artists of the contemporary era. The article presents two representative models for the symbolization of Paris as the New Rome / New Babylon and the “capital of Modernism”: D.S. Merezhkovsky’s narrative poem The End of the Century (Sketches of Contemporary Paris) and Vyacheslav I. Ivanov’s cycle Parisian Epigrams. Written in the same year—1891—both works were published within poetry collections (Symbols, 1892, by Merezhkovsky; Pilot Stars, 1903, by Ivanov) that reflect distinct stages in the history of Russian Symbolism and two fundamentally different poetic types within the modernist era. Through comparative analysis, the author concludes that the artistic apparatus of both writers reveals ambivalence: Merezhkovsky’s modernist content is situated within a text that is conservative in its poetics—if not explicitly anti-Modernist, then no more than protoModernist—whereas Ivanov, in his cycle, employs the tools of a sophisticated and mature Modernist poetics, reinterpreting elements of archaized writing to construct an extended anti-modern invective. The article further traces the lines of continuity in the development of the theme of Paris’s “Romanization” (references to Rome in the image of the city), including its connection to the theme of the “end of modernism,” within subsequent Russian poetry (I. Ehrenburg, A. Akhmatova).
The article is devoted to the study of the reception of foreign Bakhtinian research in the Chinese academic community. The term “foreign” refers to research conducted in countries other than China and Russia. In the second half of the 20th century, Bakhtin’s theories, such as dialogism, polyphony, and the carnival, rapidly gained popularity in the international academic community, becoming important tools for analyzing the novel, culture, and social critique. Chinese Bakhtinian studies also underwent rapid development over the past forty years, with the translation of foreign research and continuous dialogue with foreign scholars playing an important role in this process. This article examines the general trends and features of foreign Bakhtinian studies from the perspective of Chinese scholars, explores translated works of foreign Bakhtinians in China, and analyzes the significance and challenges of this intercultural theoretical dialogue. Various translation projects, on the one hand, contributed to the systematic understanding of Bakhtin’s legacy, and on the other, opened up opportunities for Chinese scholars not only to familiarize themselves with the interpretations of Bakhtin’s theories offered by scholars from different countries (the USA, France, the UK, Japan, etc.), but also, through the process of borrowing these ideas, to seek innovative approaches. This enabled them to construct their own theoretical framework based on the multifaceted nature of Bakhtin’s legacy.
