Przegląd Rusycystyczny 2020, nr 3

strona tytułowa

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spis treści 2020 nr 3

The article is an attempt of synthetic look about the most important problems raised as part of the so-called memory studies, the author highlights those topics and presents  lectures that are used in literary studies that are present in the framework of memory turn.

VOLYN MEMORIES IN THE STORY OF VOLODIMIR KOROLENKO IN A BAD SOCIETY

The article is dedicated to the recollections of the main character - narrator in the story of Volodimir Korolenko In a bad society. The purpose of the analysis is to determine how the character’s memory forms the image of the world, what types of memory help to recreate the past, as well as to answer the question of whether the author’s autobiographical memory is involved in creating the image of the place in the text. Presented in the work, reality is the image of events, situations, people, past emotions and feelings preserved in the memory of the narrator. Different types of memory take part in the reconstruction of the image of the past: memory of places, visual memory, emotional memory, intellectual memory, as well as autobiographical memory of the author. The image of the past is largely the result of a personal meeting of Korolenko with the space of Volhynia. 

Painful memory in Yuri Trifov’s Another Life

The motives of memory and pain are the key motives in Yuri Trifonov’s Another life. The main character of the story “accumulates memory” that is very important ability for Trifonov. A deep and honest analysis of the past allows her to understand herself and her dead spouse better. The heroine at the same time acts as the one who evaluates the past and the one who is valued; she makes an accurate diagnosis of her soul’s disease and understands the reason of the discord with her husband. The pain of loss, which permeates memories, allows her to learn how to understand the Other, and makes her free from mental blindness and impatience. Deep reasoning, introspection and the hard work of memory bring the heroine deliverance from the past. On the one hand, Trifonov makes his heroine feel the destructive force of time; on the other hand, the active work of memory allows her to realize and accept the past, giving the heroine the hope to start another life.

Memory made of plaster. On the fragility of tradition and modeling the past-future in the late works of Viktor Pelevin

The paper aims at interpreting two recent novels by Viktor Pelevin –  Mafusail's Lamp and iPhuck 10 in the context of time-space, remembrance and oblivion. The analysis revealed the Russian writer’s vast interest in the physical and philosophical theories related to the true nature of the Universe. Therefore, time and space are inextricably connected in the relevant novels as they form a whole network of parallel realities. Moreover, the realities do not function in the linear way, as human beings would like to perceive them.  In Mafusail’s Lamp time travel is possible, but the introduce modifications of the past make the future impossible (in fact, the amendment of the past leads to an utterly new time-space). On the other hand, time travel in iPhuck 10  takes an unorthodox form of world creation (in this case – a world struggling to revive traditional spiritual values), as remembrance in the novel calls for constructing a whole new world. Thus, time travel hardly makes any sense, as all possible worlds exist simultaneously.

Poetics of mythical memory in Ivan Zhdanov works

In the article we analizes Ivan Zhdanov poem More, čto zažato v klûvah ptic, - dožd’ in the context of mythical memory which is interpreted by us as a component of mythical consciousness. As the theoretical and methodological basis served premises of culture and literature specialists primarily Olga Freidenberg’s, Northrop Frye’s, Vladimir Toporov’s, Eleazar Meletinsky’s. Our aim was to demonstrate of analogy and interdependence of co-called order of words and order of nature (by N. Frye).

The purpose of the article is to analyze the category of memory in some of Vladimir Sharov’s most famous novels, such as: The Rehearsals (1992), Before and During (1992), The Old Girl (1998),Raising Lazarus (2002) and Be Like Children (2008). As it turns out, Sharov describes a reality in which, through the transmission of personal memories, crystallized into text and passed from generations to generations throughout eternity, can extend life of the individuum to the point of practical immortality.From a paper diary, containing all the smallest details from somebody’s life experience in chronological order, to the interrogation protocols, which are stored in the archives of the NKVD: text becomes in Sharov’s novels the most important repository of memory, through which it becomes possible not only to «resurrect», but also to relive everything anew. Therefore it can be noticed the prominence of the eschatological component in Sharov’s works: memory can be identified with immortality, and oblivion with death.

The aim of the article is to analyze Olga Breininger’s novel as a field for constructing the author’s identity. The category of autofiction, regarded as a tool of self-understanding and self-creation, has been chosen as the methodological foundation. The analysis of the literary text is embedded in the context of the author's non-literary activity, understood here not as biographical information, but as another (next to the fiction works) platform of self-creation. The interpretation of the novel focuses on the protagonist who experiences an identity crisis caused by chronic perfectionism and a sense of uprooting. Attention is given, among others, to the main character’s memory operations, which play a key role in understanding her existential chaos. Creating the story as a generation's voice is considered as an important device, aimed at overcoming the feeling of loneliness.

Memory loss and fate in the Asya Voloshina’s Patients

Asya Voloshina’s Patients are based on illnesses described by the British neurologist Oliver Sacks and on elements of the artistic world of the Spanish director Luis Buñuel. Combining scientific and artistic reflection, Voloshina creates his own narrative of God, freedom, fate, personality and creativity. 

The purpose of this article is to characterize the phenomenon of memory loss by the characters in connection with the concept of fate and in the context of the forsake by God.

Memory loss means for the characters a personality loss, which entails a will loss. Thanks to the great creative effort of Masha, contributing to the creation of the last film by Ion, the release of injuries forgotten by the heroes and catharsis become possible. This conclusion is made with reference to the arguments of Nikolai Berdyaev about fate, religion and freedom (according to the book The Divine and the Human).

The memory of the Great Terror in contemporary children's literature (based on the Eugen Yelchin's story Breaking Stalin's Nose)

Even though the motif of the Great Terror is present in Russian literature for children and the youth (not only contemporary, but also that published during the period of the Soviet Union), one could assume that after the fall of communism the need to re-evaluate and revalue the past, and at the same time giving a literary voice to the victims of the Stalinist regime, will increase. However, when Eugen Yelchin's book Breaking Stalin's Nose, first released in English in the USA, was translated and made available in print in Russia in 2013, its reading triggered a loud and ongoing public discussion, including voices calling it "anti-Russian". Therefore, in this article I draw the reader's attention to how the subject of the Great Terror was and is present in Russian children's literature. Analyzing it (using the motifs from Breaking Stalin's Nose as an example) from the perspective of memory and post-memory theory, I would like to point out why one short novel for children provoked so many extreme opinions among adult readers around the world.

Sergei Lebedev’s novel entitled Oblivion (Предел забвения, 2010) belongs to the (highly important in the context of the post-memory literature) tradition of the so-called generational novel. On the example of the character-narrator’s story full of struggling to learn the true identity of his “grandfather” Lebedev shows that difficult and unprocessed memory amounts to an important up-to-date problem. It is so because in most contemporary Russian families the inconvenient facts from the past remain unvoiced (or the infamous relatives disappear from the family tree) due to overwhelming tabooing of mistakes and traumas. It is indicated that the general approval (sometimes even emphasized) of oblivion creates a hole in the youngest generation’s consciousness and strengthens the so-called repressive awareness. In this context the state of the Russian nation in the face of the conscious suppression of elements of its own history becomes a major issue.

The analysis of literature evidences of the Great Patriotic War is closely connected with the consideration of the category of space. The war scenery represents not only the model of geographical space but has the symbolic status acting as the place of memory. The aim of the present article is the research of memory sceneries presented in the first two books of the Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. In the works of Belarusian writer the space, war and memory act in different configurations, creating complicated and multi-level system where the number of repeating motives and images can be found. The peculiarities of women and children memory functioning determine the ways of constructing space and identity of a person in it.  The article analyzes various types of the space: the own and the others one, the space of initiation, the taboo spaces, acoustic space, heterotopias, etc. composing the world of the Great Patriotic war seen by the eyes of Alexievich characters.

In the novel published in 2019 by Yelena Chizhova, City Written from Memory, the siege of Leningrad is inscribed in several different thematic lines. It determines the fate of the family, becomes a reference point for many situations, events and facts. The article is devoted to the process of constitution and slow formation  of separate, individual postmemory of  the siege in the consciousness of the author’s subject. The analysis of the novel's text shows that this process was never uniform, but consisted of several phases, the diversity of which resulted from the factors such as i.a. the age of the post-remembering subject, external (cultural, socio-political) circumstances, family relationships, readiness of memory bearers to share their experience, the ability to express in words the heritage received from them. The article focuses primarily on issues related to the distinctive features of individual phases of postmemory, as well as its impact on the personality of the subject being its owner.

UTOPIAS OF IMMORTALITY. NIKOLAI FEDOROV AND VASILY ROZANOV

The purpose of this work is to analyze idea of immoratlity by two Russian thinkers: Nikolai Fedorov and Vasily Rozanov. At the beginning, Fedorov’s philosophy is presented, who claimed that death needs to be defeated and all the dead people should be resurrected. Fedorov understood this task as a continuation of the mission of Christ and the realization of the fundamental postulate of Christianity — the salvation of a man. Then, the text deals with the Rozanov’s idea of immortality. He did not accept Christian version of immortality and tried to replace it with his own project, which involved a merger with the super-individual flow of life. This implied an agree for the destruction of the individual human. In conclusion, it is said that although Fedorov’s and Rozanov’s ideas seem to be opposite, in fact, glorification of life and desire to defeat death connect them.

Любовные недоразумения с точки зрения теории разума, на материале раннего творчества Антона Чехова

В настоящей статье обращаемся к одной из главных тем чеховедения последних лет, т.е. к теме коммуникации. Для Чехова коммуникация является не только простым обменом мнений, но сама становится предметом интереса и тщательных наблюдений. Оттуда возникает вполне реалистический – учитывающий разные ошибки – образ человеческого общения в прозе Чехова, который, в свою очередь, поддается анализу с учетом разных методов. Мы предлагаем посмотреть на проблему недоразумений героев (в области любви) с точки зрения ошибочной теории разума. Мы присматриваемся нескольким текстам раннего творчества писателя (м.проч. Нервы, Верочка), в которых недоразумения являются эффектом именно неправильного понимания чужого сознания, эмоций и чувств. Чехов, таким образом, создал настоящий образ человеческой коммуникации, в которой язык является лишь одним из многих явлений, решающих о успехе в межчеловеческом общении.

Love misunderstanding in the light of theory of mind, based on Anton Chekhov’s early prose

In this article we endeavour to draw the attention to one of the most essential themes in the research on Chekhov’s literary works, being the problem of communication. For Chekhov communication is not only a simple exchange of points, but it itself becomes the matter of interest and in-depth observations. Hence, its entirely realistic – bearing in mind various errors – picture of human contacts in Chekhov’s prose, which in turn can be analysed by diverse methodologies. As a tool for observation of the misunderstandings between the heroes (in the area of love), there is the defective theory of mind employed. And a few texts from early stage of Chekhov’s career fall here under scrutiny (e.g. “Nervers’, ‘Verochka’). In these short stories, misunderstandings emerge from inaccurate reading of consciousness, emotions and feelings of others. In this way, the writer creates the real picture of communication, in which the language is only one of many phenomena determining the success in human relationships.

The image of Vladimir Mayakovsky in the Soviet cultural propaganda in a period of 1953–1957.

The paper concerns components of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s image useful in the Soviet cultural propaganda during the first stag after Joseph Stalin’s death. Exceptionally popular already during his lifetime, after his death the poet was considered a father of the literature of the new Communist world, besides Maxim Gorky, and the greatest amongst the Soviet poets.  The research material consists of articles about the culture published in the newspaper ‘Pravda’ in 1953–1957. About  2% of them concerned Mayakovsky. This high percentage rate, taking into account that they concerned a single poet against a background of the entire cultural, and not only literary, life of the Soviet Union, results from the fact that this person “served” simultaneously several fields of interest, where “the old” opposed “the new”. Mayakovsky was an embodiment of a specifically understood “citizenship” and commitment, which was set against the lack of any ideology in trends from outside of the Socialist realism stream, he was also an epitome of the fight itself and, finally, a personified negation of the thesis about the rigidity and stuffiness of the Socialist realism.

The paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey that the author conducted among Modern Languages students at the University of Szczecin. 45 women and 45 men took part in the survey. Individual similarities and differences were examined within two personality spheres: intellectual and affective. In the intellectual sphere, the differences between the groups concerned memory processes and features, cognitive and thinking styles, and language aptitude (e.g. women have greater ease of expression while men have greater ability to analyse the language). The similarities revealed are: approach to linguistic phenomena (similar grammatical sensitivity) and use of similar communication strategies (preferences for achievement strategies). It was found that in the affective sphere, women and men differ slightly in personality types and experiencing emotional states when being in class (women are more often accompanied by negative emotions). The similarities relate to the motives of learning foreign languages instrumental-integrating motivation dominates) and low self-esteem (disbelief in own language capabilities).

Noty o autorach PR 2020 nr 3