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“... studying travelogues often becomes a journey...”: A. Y. Sorochan: Travel writing as literature. Monograph. Tver, “Alpha Press”, 2024, pp. 254. ISBN: 978‐5‐98721‐073‐4
Views:306The present review analyzes the monograph of A. Y. Sorochan, published in 2024. The author is a philologist, a professor at Tver State University who specializes in the history and theory of literature. He defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Motivation in the Russian Historical Novel of the 1830s–1840s”, which focuses on a unique combination of historical and literary approaches. This monograph is thematically close to Sorochan's dissertation and consists of three parts: in the first the author speaks generally about travel literature; the second section is devoted to works of Russian literature; and the third section contains reviews of books on travel literature. In this critical article, the specificity of historical and imagological approaches in Sorochan's work on travel literature is analyzed.
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Belarusian Literature of the Last Thirty Years From the Perspective of Siarhiej Kavalou’s Book: Сяргей Кавалëў: Беларуская літаратура перыяду трансфармацыі. Абрысы замглëнага краявіду [Siarhiej Kavaloŭ: Belarusian literature of the transformation period: Outlines of a hazy landscape]. Lublin, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2025, 270 p. ISBN: 978-83-227-9916-1
Views:29This text is a review of a book by the renowned scholar of Belarusian literature Siarhiej Kavaloŭ, devoted to the history of Belarusian literature from 1985 to 2020. The author explores the dramatic fate of the literary generation known as the ‘Tutèjšyâ' [Locals], who initiated a process of linguistic and artistic renewal after 1985. He traces the development of the literary scene following independence, highlighting key artistic events, and emerging figures in Belarusian literature. He also presents the political and social circumstances accompanying this process, right up to its stalling following the elections rigged by Lukashenko in 2020. Kavaloŭ writes about Belarusian poetry, prose, and drama. He analyses the work of the most important literary critics and literary historians. The book was published in 2025 at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin in Belarusian.
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Angelika Molnar: Text, Genre, Word: Studies in Russian literature of the 19th–21st centuries. Moscow, Azbukovnik 2022, 424 pp. ISBN 978-5-91172-221-0
Views:337This review contains a critical analysis of Angelika Molnar's new book, her monograph entitled Text, genre, word: Studies in the Russian literature of the 19th-21st centuries is devoted to various texts of different eras from Pushkin’s to Sorokin’s, however, the focus of the study is Molnár's favorite Russian writer, Goncharov, whose work, unfortunately, rarely attracts the attention of Western researchers. In Molnár's book, the main, clearly indicated methodological principle is discursive poetics, which works well when studying intertexts within the framework of both large and small literary and historical series. Therefore, Russian literature is considered by the researcher as a single text in which the "old" is updated by the "new". The review emphasizes the significance of the monograph, which first of all offers an up-to-date interpretationof Russian classics in the context of modernity. The book will be of interest both to a professional researcher of Russian literature and to everyone who is interested in Russian culture and the Russian worldview.
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Nowe dwudziestolecie (1989–2009). Rozpoznania, hierarchie, perspektywy [The New Twenties (1989-2009): Recognitions, Hierarchies, Perspectives]. Ed. by Hanna Gosk. Warsaw: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa, p. 530, ISBN 978-83-7151-873-7
Views:184The volume Nowe dwudziestolecie (1989-2009): Rozpoznania, hierarchie, perspektywy [The new twenties (1989-2009): Recognitions, hierarchies, perspectives] reflects on the twenty years of Polish literature and literary change between 1989 and 2009, and compares and contrasts this period with the twenty years between the two world wars. The two twenty-year periods are linked by the fact that their starting point is associated with a date of immense importance for Polish history: 1918 is the year when Poland was returned on the map of Europe, and 1989 is also the year of the change of regime in Poland. The period between the two world wars is also regarded as a separate period in Polish literary history, while the second twenty years covered in this volume are questionable as a literary unit, a question which the essays in this book seek to answer. The volume is divided into three large sections, the first focusing primarily on theory, the second on Polish characteristics and themes that characterised Polish literature after 1989, and the third large section on the genre characteristics that have characterised Polish literature since the fall of communism to this day but were also important between the two world wars.
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On the threshold of change: Annamária Vass: Down with Socialist realism – Long live postmodernism! Paradigm shift in Russian literature in the second half of the 1980s. Debrecen, Debrecen University Press, 2024, pp. 184. ISBN: 978-963-615-163-8
Views:271The review examines a new book by Hungarian researcher Annamária Vass on paradigm shift in Russian literature. The volume analyses in detail the literary and cultural changes that began in the mid-1980s, shedding light on how socialist realism was transformed into postmodernism. Annamária Vass focuses on understanding the characteristics of postmodernism and provides a fascinating historical overview of how socialist realism gradually lost its dominance. By analysing the works of Yevgeny Popov and Vasily Aksyonov demonstrate the specific characteristics of postmodern literature. The volume provides an excellent overview of this chaotic period of Russian literature.
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Russian literary history for advanced readers, with plenty of textual illustrations: Lukyanova, I.: Once upon a time there was Russian literature: From Ancient Rus' to the XX century. Publishing House AST.2023. Moscow. Pp. 348. ISBN 978-5-17-154945-9
Views:319Lukyanova's book was published in 2023. The author is a journalist who studies Russian literature and its history, and reviews it in a rather unique way. The purpose of the review is to determine what genre Lukyanova's book can be classified as, and to find out what its uniqueness is manifested in.
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The Emigré Writers of the Empire : Other Coasts of Russian Literature and Culture: Ideas, Poetics, Contexts. Collective Monograph. Eds. Elżbieta Tyszkowska-Kasprzak, Ilona Motiejunaite and Alfija Smirnova in cooperation with Maria Gej. Scriptum, Wroclaw ‒ Krakow 2021, p. 494 ISBN 978-83-66812-37-6
Views:262This volume of studies on Russian émigré literature was published during the last year before the war in a form of scholarly cooperation between Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Czech scholars unthinkable today. The theme of joint research makes the work even more interesting, because Poles have a very different understanding of the mission of émigré writers than Russians. In the first chapter of the monograph, entitled The History of Emigration, we find interesting biographical portraits of prominent figures such as Alexander Herzen and Gleb Struve. In the next part we read mainly about ideological problems and ethnic stereotypes. The third chapter focuses on the problems of poetics, and the last on heterotypes. The aspects of the analyses also touch upon the poetics of space and imagology.
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From the Classic Novel to the Crime Novel: A Genre Paradigm Shift in Artistic Reception
Views:197The article deals with the cases of classical works completion, in which their genre nature undergoes a change. The texts are transferred from the sphere of high literature to the low one, as the continuing of the plot with the criminal line becomes the main method. The material for the analysis is “The very same Tatiana” by A. and S. Litvinovs, as well as the novel “Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James. I show that one of the most relevant genres in this change of genre paradigm is “by victim investigation”, which allows to retain some recognizable items of the classic primary source.
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Interferences in the Field of Literature and Philosophy: Contact Points in the Poetry of Russian and Hungarian Authors: Dukkon Ágnes: A veszélyes szépség útjain. Eszmék, témák, kapcsolatok a klasszikus orosz irodalom világában, L'Harmattan Könyvkiadó – Uránia Ismeretterjesztő Társulat, Budapest, 2021, 340. p. ISBN: 978-963-414-702-2
Views:182The Hungarian literary scholar Ágnes Dukkon set herself a great task to complete in her new monograph by undertaking to offer a broad overview of the entire 19th century epoch of Russian literature through monitoring the transformation and evolution of the literary motive of dangerous beauty [ужасная красота]. While focusing on the concrete correspondences between a variety of literary worlds, the study presents interpretations of works by A.S. Pushkin, M.Y. Lermontov, F.I. Tyutchev, N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoyevsky, M.Y. Saltikov-Shchedrin, N.S. Leskov, and L.N. Tolstoy. At the same time, however, the author of this monograph never fails to keep in mind the conceptual context of the artistic texts by analyzing their relationship with the topical contemporary philosophical ideas of the age. For the Hungarian readers, the chapters incorporating the conclusions of research aimed at Russian–Hungarian connections, conducted with the methodology of historical poetics, comparative literary studies, intertextuality, and biographism, are of special interest. The scholarly findings of this renowned researcher would definitely deserve to be translated in the future into an international language.
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The Psychology of Literary Creativity in the Works of Mihail Arnaudov
Views:244Mihail Petrov Arnaudov (1878-1978), a Bulgarian scientist, was a famous European researcher with significant contributions to several fields of scholarship, i.e., folklore, the history of Bulgarian literature of the Renaissance, comparative literary history, the literature and culture of ancient India, the theory of literary science, the history of German and French literature of Romanticism, etc. This paper is devoted to his contribution to the study of the psychology of literary creativity. It analyses the prerequisites for Arnaudov’s formation as a psychologist of creativity, and provisionally identifies several main stages in his scientific and professional path, during which he conducted research and produced works in this interdisciplinary field. With the help of historical and psychological analysis, the general and specific features in the development of his views on the essence of the psychology of creativity and the meaning of its use in literary criticism and literary history are presented.
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Issues of Translation from Russian to Hungarian and from Hungarian to Russian: Studia Litteraria 2020/1-2, LIX. évfolyam. Orosz irodalom fordításokban. Debrecen 2020, 146 p. HU ISSN 0562-2867
Views:235This review is a content overview of the issue 1-2/2020 of Studia Litteraria, a Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies. This collection of scholarly articles is an excellent material for a varied and comprehensive look at current matters of translation and contemporary literature. The authors of the articles are practicing translators, therefore the general positions are explained through their own, specific works and practical experience. The purpose of this review is to briefly acquaint readers with the content of scholarly papers which have been categorized by topics for convenience.
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Camp prose: On the semantics and conceptual framework of the term
Views:405The paper analyzes camp prose as a unique literary phenomenon in 20th century Russian literature, shaped under the extreme conditions of Stalinists labor camps and repressions. The study looks into the effects of imprisonment on the linguistic personalities of both professional writers, such as V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn, and non-writers like E. Ginzburg and E. Kersnovskaya. The writings of these authors provide key points for analyzing the psychological, social, and individual transformations the authors experienced during incarceration. The use of metaphorical language in shaping their works is a major area of study. The authors succeed in delineating the unspeakable horrors of camp life by using metaphors as both stylistic elements and tools for reinterpretation. The study analyzes how these metaphors reflect the broader themes of dehumanization, endurance, and moral resilience. In addition, the analysis illustrates that camp prose goes beyond documentary testimony, becoming a means of linguistic resistance and creative survival. By exploring the lexical choices and narrative structures of these texts, the present study discusses methods in which authors build a new literary language and process in and of expressing trauma and memory. In doing this, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the interaction between personal experience, linguistic expression, and historical representation in Russian literature.
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The Image of Europe in Nikolay Karamzin’s “Letters of a Russian Traveller”
Views:28“Russia or Europe?” Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin undertook a journey to Western Europe and, whilst travelling, wrote travel letters describing his impressions. In Russian literature, even before Karamzin, there were works of travel literature written for the purposes of pilgrimage or trade, but in the 18th century the emphasis shifted to enlightenment and to the description of the national characters of the peoples of Western Europe. How does the Russian traveller perceive Western Europeans, how does he describe representatives of Western nations, and what does he pay attention to upon arriving in a foreign city? This article seeks to answer these questions.
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Fragmentation in Byron’s “The Giaour” as a model for Lermontov’s “A Hero Of Our Time”
Views:247Lermontov never hid his enthusiasm for Western literature and especially for Byron’s poetry. The similarity between the two poets’ personalities and certain character types and motifs in their works has already been established in the literature in the 19th century. This paper aspires to prove that there can also be a connection between the narrative poem The Giaour and the novel A Hero of Our Time from the perspective of literary fragmentation, especially omissions and gaps found in narration, structure and chronology in the two texts.
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Between Mystery and Riddle: From Narrative Strategy to Literary Genre
9 p.Views:373In the paper a difference is made between the mysterious and the enigmatic as fundamentally
different narrative and genre strategies. The first is typical of the so-called novelmystery
or the novel-myth, charcterized by the concept of impossible rational comprehension
of the mystery explained by the plot. The second represents a vast field of criminal literature,
where the plot is dependent on a riddle that has a pre-given answer. The differences between
these two types of novels are manifested at all the main levels of poetics, especially in the
specific traits of the subject-oriented organization. However, the paper shows that the general
strategy of the mysterious is also implemented through different moods in different criminal
genres such as classic detective stories, the police novel, the “adventurous investigation”, and
the “victim-centered investigation”. Thus, we can conclude that the mystery and the riddle
can reassemble genre constructive strategies not minus then narrative. -
“Hungarian Subject Matter” in Chekhov (The Short Story The Unnecessary Victory)
Views:311The paper considers “The unnecessary victory” as one of the notable works of the earliest stage of Chekhov’s creativity. The Hungarian theme of the story, inspired by the novels of Mór Jókai translated into Russian, and its plot, related to the traditions of the European career novel, address a wide audience. The young writer plays along with this reader with exotic narrative elements and delineates the difference between serious and marginal literature. This hoax, together with other skits of those years, reveals the young writer’s view of literary pursuits as an exciting game in which the main expectation is to be truthful and graceful. The same goals, according to Chekhov, characterize literature in general, regardless of the field of its competence and of the readership coverage.
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Angelika Molnár: Reception and Analysis of the Text. Selected works. Moscow, Azbukovnik, 2023, 447 pp. ISBN 978-5-91172-236-4
Views:329The review examines a new book by Hungarian researcher Angelika Molnár on classical Russian literature of the 19th century. Molnár's book analyses the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Chekhov in the context of the overlaps with the literature of the 21st century (Ulitskaya, Akunin, etc.). The main emphasis is placed on describing the principles of textual formation through the prism of discursive poetics. The history of Hungarian reinterpretation of Russian classics is widely represented in the book. The interpretations of the works reveal unusual correlations between the works and show the specificity of the writers' poetics in a new way.
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Turgenev Today: On the Problem of Perception
17 p.Views:391The article deals with the question of how Turgenev’s work is perceived by the modern
reader. There are identified aspects related to the complexity of understanding the writer’s
texts, which are largely due to stereotypes that have developed in the culture of perception,
and are also features of his poetics. There are different ways of new interpretations of Turgenev’s
famous texts – those of the novels “Fathers and Sons” and “The Noble Nest”. In “Fathers
and Sons” the idea of reconciliation with contradictions is emphasized, and ‘The Noble’s
Nest” is considered a successful social project in literature. The article briefly highlights
the main stages of Turgenev’s popularizing Russian culture in the West. -
From Gregory of Nyssa to Boris Akunin and Eugene Vodolazkin – and beyond : “the language, which I spake and fram’d”: Linguistic Presence: Collection of Academic Papers in Honour of Arpad Kovacs’s 80th Jubilee. Edited by A. Molnár and M. Hoványi. Budapest, ELTE Eötvös József Collegium, 2024, pp. 416. ISBN: 978-615-5897-67-2
Views:267This review discusses the Festschrift published in honour of Professor Árpád Kovács’s 80th birthday. Professor Kovács is an eminent Hungarian scholar whose research on Russian Literature (mainly on Dostoevsky’s oeuvre) and innovations in literary theory are well-known, respected and followed by the Slavic studies specialists throughout the world. The volume consists of 30 papers written by Professor Kovács’s friends, colleagues and admirers. In the high standard and innovative approach of each paper, the volume is undoubtedly worthy of Professor Kovács’s legacy and represents the unique approach to literary texts which he established during his career.
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On the Reception of the Poem The Twelve by Aleksandr Blok in German Criticism and Literature Studies of the Past 50 Years
Views:321The article examines the German reception of Alexander Blok’s poem “The Twelve” based on selected criticism and works of literary history published by Slavists, poets and translators during the last fifty years. Analyses and interpretations of the poem are presented in detail, while other post-1917 writings and statements by Blok are also mentioned in order to provide context.
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A Witness of the Era: A New Biography of Slovak Writer Pavol Strauss (1912–1994): Ivan A. Petranský: Pavol Strauss a jeho 20. storočie [Pavol Strauss and his 20th century]. Bratislava, Marenčin PT, 2025, 572 p. ISBN: 978-80-5569-1379-6
Views:33Petranský’s book Pavol Strauss a jeho 20. storočie [Pavol Strauss and his 20th century] is a comprehensive biography of the eminent Slovak poet Pavol Strauss (1912–1994), an essayist and aphorist who had been associated with Catholic literary circles since 1946. Pavol Strauss came from a Jewish, intellectual family. From his childhood, he showed an aptitude for literature and music. In the 1930s, he completed his medical studies at a German university in Prague, where he also made his literary debut with two volumes of poetry in German. Before the World War II, he returned to Slovakia, where he began working as a doctor. In the early 1940s, he was baptised into the Catholic faith, which may have saved him from the Holocaust, and in the mid-1940s he began writing in Slovak. He chose to become a Slovak writer, combining literature with his work as a surgeon in hospitals.
In the late 1940s, he was persecuted by the security services. He was subject to a ban on publication in Slovakia for almost the rest of his life. He published sporadically in Slovak Catholic publications and in Rome. Despite the repression, he continued to write and became increasingly respected within literary circles. In the 1970s and 1980s, he also became involved in the Catholic samizdat movement.
Petranský’s biography draws on numerous previously unknown sources, including material from family archives, the security services’ archives, and the Vatican archives. Petranský paints a highly detailed picture of the era of totalitarianism and the situation of a man living by moral principles that remained unshaken by the tragic events of the time. The portrait of the life of this poet and essayist, whose work was only recognised after his death, is also a portrait of Slovakia’s post-war history. Strauss began his life as a citizen of Austria–Hungary and ended it as a citizen of independent Slovakia. He witnessed great historical changes and bore witness to them in his work. Today, he ranks among the most outstanding Slovak writers associated with the Catholic movement. -
Lecturer, Researcher and Translator in One Person. In Honour of József Goretity's 60th Birthday
Views:340József Goretity has been working at the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the University of Debrecen since 1985 and has been the head of the institute since 2012. During this time he has been teaching courses on 19th and 20th century West-European and Russian literature focusing on the tradition of the novel and mythopoetics at the Department of Comparative Literature as well. In 1996 he was appointed head of the department. Between 1992 and 1999 he was a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Miskolc. Besides his teaching activity, József Goretity’s work in the field of literary translation is also outstanding. He has brought such prominent Russian writers to Hungarian-speaking audiences as Narine Abgaryan, Sergey Dovlatov, Viktor Yerofeyev, Viktor Pelevin, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Yuri Polyakov, Grigoriy Ryazhskiy, Marina Stepanova, Alexandr Terekhov or Lyudmila Ulickaya. Besides literary texts he also translated literary and cultural studies into Hungarian, such as P. P. Apryshko’s influential monograph The History of Russian Philosophy. József Goretity’s most influential academic works are Idézet paródia és mítosz Fjodor Szologub két regényében and Töredékesség és teljességigény. Huszadik századi orosz prózai művek értelmezése. In 2014 he was awarded the Medal of Pushkin by the President of the Russian Federation. In 2019 he received the prestigous state award, the Golden Cross, for his achievement.
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Teffi as a Person and Woman Writer: A View from Overseas
6 p.Views:370This review describes the conceptual and content side of the book by an American specialist Edith Haber on the life and work of Teffi (1872-1952). This is the only monograph on Teffi in the world. In the review a subtle combination of historical method and literary criticism is noted. The biography of an outstanding person and a talented woman writer is reconstructed against a well-known historical background – three Russian revolutions, two world wars and the first wave of Russian emigration. Special attention is paid to the E. Haber`s analysis of evolution in Teffi`s writing. The characters and plots were changed, the author’s tone and part were altered. The book is praised for its uniqueness and the author – for her high professionalism.
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Ivan Goncharov’s Novel “A Common Story” and the Problem of “Petersburg Text”
Views:525The article raises the question about the nature of the “Petersburg text” in the novel “A Common Story”, about its correlation with the general body of the “Petersburg text” of Russian literature and about its individual meanings in Goncharov’s prose. Various levels of the “Petersburg text” are considered: the expression of the category of the “inner state” of the hero, as well as culture and nature. It is concluded that Goncharov’s novel does not fully fit into the mainstream of the “Petersburg text” of Russian literature, but adopts the basic principles of its construction, and also has great potential for the semantic increments of the individual local Petersburg dictionary, which is determined by Goncharov’s irony and symbolization.
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The Cult of Pushkin in the Context of Popular Literature Over the Course of a Century (1837–1937): Kalavszky Zsófia: A totális Puskin. Populáris műfajok a Puskin-kultuszban, 1837–1937 [Zsófia Kalavszky: The total Pushkin. Popular genres in the Pushkin cult, 1837–1937]. Budapest, Reciti, 2024, 398 p. ISBN: 978-963-672-015-5
Views:36The publication of Zsófia Kalavszky’s monograph is a landmark event in the field of Russian studies in Hungary. In this thorough scholarly work, Kalavszky explores the nature of the Pushkin cult, offering important findings into the century following the Russian poet’s death and tracing his evolution into an iconic figure. Rather than focusing on commemorative texts by literary giants, she ventures into the realm of popular literature to track the shifts in the myth surrounding Pushkin, reflecting changes occurring in specific historical eras and within the receiving audience. The monograph conveys in-depth expertise in a way that makes it an engaging read for a broad audience.
