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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:240This 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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The Features of Theatrical Life in Hungary: The Legal and Financial Basis
18 p.Views:287The present study is concerned with the Hungarian theatre system. In the first part general
questions connected with the existing model of theatrical activity are treated. This is
followed by an analytical review of modern Hungarian cultural legislation, in which special
attention is paid to the structure and content of Law XCIX / 2008 “On the support and rules
of employment in organizations of performing arts”. Then all the existing present-day models
of direct and indirect financial support of theatrical organizations are considered. Since the
Hungarian and Russian theatre systems have some similar characteristics, the final part is
devoted to possible partial adoption of Hungarian experience with a view to developing the
institutions for the additional funding of Russian theatres. -
“... 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:311The 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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The Hungarian reception of Dostoevsky until the 1920s in the context of European and Hungarian Modernism
Views:325This paper deals with the questions Dostoevsky’s reception in Hungary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author investigates the growing interest in Dostoevsky in the context of the new trends of art and literature and gives a detailed survey of the most characteristic reactions (i.e. reviews, studies, introductions to books) about the new translations and editions of Dostoevsky’s works. Among the most relevant questions addressed arestereotypes about Russian culture and people, living in Hungary duringthe past centuries, the various interpretations of Crime and Punishment, and some comparative aspects in the analyses of this novel.
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«Doktor Zhivago» and Leonid Pasternak
Views:323In this article, we analyze the transformation of values in the literature and art of the first half of the 20th century through the creative strategies of two closely linked people: the poet Boris Pasternak and his father, the painter Leonid Pasternak. An academician of painting, Leonid Pasternak renewed the traditions of realism, being in close contact with Leo Tolstoy while working on the illustrations for Tolstoy’s novel “The Resurrection”. Having made a creative journey from the movement of “peredvizhniki” (“the Itinerants”) toward Impressionism, he did not accept the newest trends, as opposed to his son who had undergone a long period of fascination with Futurism, as well as the influence of Modernism. This conflict of aesthetics lost its poignancy with the passing of the years and with the geographical distance (Pasternak the father having emigrated in the beginning of the 20s). Thus, Boris Pasternak returned to the poetics of the classical Russian prose in his novel “Doctor Zhivago.” But the Christian values on which the conceptual basis of the novel rests, remained unknown to the father, who had passed away just before his son began working on the novel. The result was the novel itself with its covert subtextual influence and the polemics of the son and the father, the poet and the artist.
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Aglaya Returns Home, The Mystery of The Apocryph of Aglaia. Ed. by Elena Kozmina. INTMEDIA, Yekaterinburg 2020, 231 pp. ISBN 978-5-6040560-8-0
Views:279This collection of studies is a unique example of a collective monograph written by Russian, Polish and Hungarian scholars on a contemporary Polish literary work. The novel by Jerzy Sosnowski entitled Aglaia’s Apocrypha is an ideal subject of analysis because of its complicated narrative structure, multilevel composition and genre complexity. The authors of the studies describe the connections between the storytellers and the author, define the context of the novel both in high and popularculture. Some of them represent the best traditions of Russian poetics of prose. Jerzy Sosnowski began his career as a literary critic and literary historian, he was an influential interpreter and promoter of the new tendencies in the Polish literature of the eighties.When he became a prosewriter, he followed the new aesthetic trend of Polish postmodernism. Jerzy Sosnowski as the author of a novel written about an erotic cyborg, its/her admirer and the operator was a forerunner of posthumanism.
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On the Existence of Expletive Subjects in Russian
11 p.Views:324According to traditional grammars, Russian does not contain expletive subjects. However,
investigations in the generative framework suggest, that the pronoun это with certain
predicates can be perceived as an expletive subject. The present article gives a short overview
of previous investigations and aims at providing a unified analysis of constructions with -o
final adverbial predicates or with the verbs бывать and нравиться. -
The Features of Theatre Activity in Hungary: The Legal and Financial Basis (II)
12 p.Views:369Hungarian theatre system is the main object of the following article. The first part of article contains the general questions connected with the existing model of theatrical activity. Then there is the analytical review of the modern Hungarian legislation of area of culture and special attention is paid to the structure and content of Law XCIX / 2008 “On support and rules of employment in organizations of performing arts”. In the following part of the article all models which exist and develop in the country nowadays of direct and indirect financial support of theatrical organizations are considered. Since Hungarian and Russian theatre systems have some similar characteristics, the final part is devoted to possible partial adoption of Hungarian experience with a view to develop the institutions for the additional funding of Russian theatres.
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From literature to ecocriticism: Siberian dams and their impact on the natural and human environment
Views:315Written with an ecocritical perspective, the present paper is devoted to the analysis of affinities and differences between two major works of Russian literature of the second half of the 20th century, Proshchanie s Materoy [Farewell to Matyora, 1976] by Rasputin (1937–2015) and Zona zatopleniya [The Flood Zone, 2015] by Senchin (b. 1971). Forty years later, these novels enter a dialogue, starting from some key themes and the common subject: the real flooding of several Siberian rural villages due to the construction of dams and hydroelectric power plants. The first part of the paper introduces and contextualizes the construction of what has been called “great dams”, outlining their main aims and characteristics, as well as the environmental consequences for neighbouring territories and populations. The second section focuses on the parallelisms between the two literary texts, examining, in particular, the image of nature and the peculiar “Siberian chronotope” which emerges from them. In both novels, in fact, the conflict between humans and nature plays a central role. The last part of the study provides a comparison between the contents and the main thematic issues of the narratives, taking into account the traumatic psychological impact of evacuation and resettlement on the characters. The rather marked stylistic differences between the works of the two authors make it possible to propose some final reflections on the profound relationships entertained by their literary works which go beyond a mere ‘remake’ or actualization.
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Culture and Normative Sociable Systems in a Period of Crisis: Issues of Theory and Practice
Views:215This article is devoted to the analysis of topical questions of the development of culture and normative sociable systems in a period of crisis. People faced new concept of reality in the third decade of 21st century. In the era of a brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible world the question of responsibility for the state of culture and normative sociable systems is most acute. As representatives of culture, education and science, researchers can create the space of clean, healthy, favorable opportunities for the development in the post crisis period.
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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:340The 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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Rácz, Ildikó Mária: A lét és a szerelem szentsége. Ivan Bunyin művészi világképe. L’Harmattan, Budapest 2020, 373 pp. ISBN 978-963-414-681-0
Views:318This review presents a critical analysis of the monograph on Bunin by the Hungarian researcher Ildikó Mária Rácz. The author describes the main thematic blocs of the volume, for example, the influence of classic Russian literature on Bunin (Turgeniev, Tolstoi, Chekhov, and Tiutchev), the role of Eastern philosophy in the evolution of Bunin’s art, the connection between the modern psychological concepts (Freud, Jung) and the short stories as Mitya’s love or The grammar of love.
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The Function of the „Author’s Mask” in “The Soul of a Patriot or Various Epistles to Ferfichkin” by Yevgeni Popov
Views:350Playing with the author’s figure is not a new device in Postmodernism. One may refer to “Either/Or” by Søren Kierkegaard or “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by Alexander Pushkin, or “The Fiery Angel” by Valery Bryusov. At the same time the foreword of “The soul of a patriot or Various epistles to Ferfichkin” proves that in Postmodernism this game is taken to the next level. The author who abandoned their fictional space and renounced theirauthorial role during Modernism returns and re-takes their formal place. However, he does not do it seriously but hiding behind the mask of the author – says Malmgren, introducing the term of the author’s maskinto literary discourse. In this analysis I state that Popov, using the author’s mask, turns the traditional interpretationof the author’s role inside out. I conclude that, on the one hand, the author’s mask ridicules the concept by which the author’s biography is the key to his work. On the other hand, it makes fun of Vinogradov’s view, according to which there is always an abstract author hiding in the text who carries its real meaning. I come to the conclusion, that Popov uses this narrative technique to emphasise that it is impossible to look at a literary work as an arsenal of ultimate truths and statements.
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On the Mystery of Interpretation: Studia Humanitatis. Ars Hermeneutica. Metodologie A Theurgie Hermeneutické Interpretace IX. Kolektiv autorů. red.: Jan Vorel. Ostravská univerzita: Ostrava 2022., 148 p., ISBN: 978-80-7599-333-5
Views:186The aim of this review is to introduce the ninth volume of the publication series Studia Humanitatis, Ars Hermeneutica, published by the Department of Slavonic Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. The monograph is an output of proceedingsfrom conferences which are regularly organized by this department. Attention to the art of interpretation and the related need to situate works of art in a complex web of cultural and historical connections is an important part of the effort to understand the deep context of artistic creation as such and the possibility for recipients to gain the most accurate understanding of the message conveyed by a work of art. The monograph highlights a number of aspects of artisticcreation: it notes the circumstances of the creation of the artwork, the ability of the interpreter to place the artwork in the context of the historical conditions in which it is created, and the theoretical concepts that can be used for its interpretation.
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Historical Data and the Modern Linguistic Landscape of the City of Berehove (Transcarpathian region, Ukraine)
Views:192The first mention of Berehove dates back to 1063 when the Hungarian prince Lampert (the youngest son of the Hungarian king Béla I) built his palace here. Until the beginning of the 16th century, the village (since 1247 the town) bore the name of its founder (first “Lampertháza” and then “Lampertszász”). In 1504 (according to other sources, in 1499), the name “Beregszász” appeared for the first time. The modern Ukrainian name for the city is “Berehove” (in Russian “Beregovo”), but the old Hungarian version “Beregszász”is also sometimes used. Now it is a city of regional importance with a population of about 26 thousand people (according to the latest official data from 2001), located in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, a few kilometers from the Hungarian border.
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Figures of the Young Actress in the Dramatic Art of A.N. Ostrovsky and A.P. Chekhov
Views:358The present study focuses on the turning point in drama history between the artistic concept of A.N. Ostrovsky, the founder of modern Russian theater, and that of A.P. Chekhov, who transformed the former approach in the matter of just a few decades. I propose that an analysis of Ostrovsky’s Talents and Admirers (1881) and Chekhov’s The Seagull (1896) can reveal the borderline that divides the dramatic formations belonging to these two separate periods. The analysis concentrates on the transformation of a specific motive, the portrayal and the dramatization of the chances of destiny available for the figure of the young actress. I presume that the dramaturgical features surfacing through the exploration of this portrayal will outline the differences in the approach and in the poetic means used by the outstanding representatives of these successive periods in drama history. Thus, I am not seeking intertextual instances in the narrow sense of the term. Rather, I am after a thematic and motive-based congeniality and its saturation with a new meaning, coming from the functional shift that establishes a connection between the texts of the pieces by Chekhov and Ostrovsky. This approach to intertextuality in the broader sense of the term, which is not primarily present in references at the textual level but is rather based on, for example, thematic congruity, can play an important part also in the assessment concerning functional history, in exploring reception-related peculiarities and, consequently, in the validation of the historical aspect.
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Identity Problems from Historical, Cultural and Literary Aspects
7 p.Views:427This critique focuses on the latest part of the publication series by the Slavic Historical and Philological Association entitled “Individual and Collective Identities”, which is of great importance for the field of Russian Studies in Hungary as it provides a regular platform for academics with annual conferences. In the three main chapters of the book, identity is approached in different contexts from a historical, cultural, and literary point of view. For this reason, we can say that this collection stands out due to its interdisciplinary nature and complexity serving as a useful resource for those who deal with identity issues.
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Damaskin Semenov-Rudnev: Philosopher and Panegyricist
11 p.Views:244The article provides a short summary of the philosophical and theological views of Damaskin Semenov-Rudnev, an 18th century Russian clerical leader, on the basis of his philosophical theses and sermons. The article also shows that his theology served as a means for consolidating the imperial power of Catherine II.
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From the Classic Novel to the Crime Novel: A Genre Paradigm Shift in Artistic Reception
Views:201The 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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The Theory of Metaphors in Contemporary Literary Studies
17 p.Views:365This article is designed as a brief overview of the methods of how metaphor is defined in contemporary scholarship. In the discussion of the similarities and differences of the basic Russian and Western poetic, philosophical and logical approaches to metaphors are compared to each other. Besides, Hungarian comprehensive syntheses and reconsiderations of metaphors are also touched upon. Finally, suggestions are made as to which aspects of literary studies and linguistics can be used in the analysis of the system of tropes in literature.
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The Importance of Animacy-Inanimacy Category of the Noun and the Context
11 p.Views:378The article considers the semantic aspect of the of animacy-inanimacy category in nouns in Russian language, in particular, peculiarities of collocability of some nouns with verbs in terms of animacy-inanimacy category.The study of the semantic interaction of nouns and animate-inanimate marked verbs, which are collocating with these nouns, allows to detect combination of signs of “animate” or “inanimate” in meanings of some nouns with fluctuant grammatical indicator of animacy-inanimacy category. Thus, this study can raise the issues about the cognitive factor in meaning formation process and also about specific character of the process how peculiarities of cognitive experience, received from human exploration of the environment, are expressed.
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Historia Morbi of the Hero of A.P. Chekhov's Short Story The Black Monk: Textual and Intertextual Forms of its Presentation
Views:300The ambiguity of the presentation of the illness of the protagonist of Chekhov’s short story The Black Monk and the author's attitude to it is discussed in this paper. The essential role of irony in the story is noted, due to the historical and literary context and the intertext that arises on its basis. The ironic modality is induced, on the one hand, due to the connection of the story with the early work of the writer, and on the other hand, with the works of other authors. The role of Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit as a catalyst for irony is also discussed. The ironic modality does not exclude the formulation of a serious problem of the inauthentic existence of humans but gives it an ambivalent character. The interweaving of the conditional beginning and the unconditional in the depiction of the hero and his illness allows Chekhov to pose the ontological problem of the inadequacy of the self-esteem of the individual.
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Folklore and Literature: Once Again about the Research Methodology
Views:353When using the methods of analysis applied in folkloristics in literary works, narrative models and character types formed in myths, fairy tales and rituals are distinguished. Different literary characters enter into one archetypal paradigm and display the same invariant functions, properties and attributes. In this regard, the research of common traditional elements of the structure and poetics of literary works and that of the interpretation of individual literary texts in terms of the interaction of "ready-made" and individual values and rules of construction is made possible.
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“Hungarian Subject Matter” in Chekhov (The Short Story The Unnecessary Victory)
Views:315The 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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Ekphrasis - Chameleon of Literary studies “Theory and History of Ekphrasis: Results and Prospects of Study” Siedlce, 2018
9 p.Views:507This article aims to highlight the various methods in which ekphrasis can be analysed and new interpretations of the phenomenon in the monograph “The Theory and History of Ekphrasis: Results and Prospects of the Study” published for the 15th year anniversary of the previous work “Ekphrasis in Russian Literature” (2002). The articles touch upon the history of the study of ekphrasis, its typology, the dynamics of its functions as well as the poetics of description in the history of literature, theory and classification, including the theme of narratology, and works containing analysis from autobiographical points of view. The novelty of the monograph is that it also includes contemporary fiction which provides an excellent opportunity to redefine and reinterpret the phenomenon.
