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Specialization and Areas of Interest

Russian Literature

I began my work in 1980 studying literary connotations and associations as reflected in the lyrics of Batiushkov, Pushkin, and Akhmatova, trying to show that the very frequent image of the Shadow of the Deceased is conveyed through similar vocabulary and intonation in verses by Pushkin and Batiushkov, in a well-known article by M. Gershenzon from the early twentieth century, and in Akhmatova's poem "A ia preduprezhdaiu vas." My investigation focused on how reality is conveyed in a literary work through literary patterns and resulted in the paper, "'Ten': Akhmatova, Pushkin, Batiushkov."

In 1981, I turned to Gogol's "Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami" as interpreted by A.Grigor'ev and the Slavophiles. One of Grigor'ev's first critiques was that of Gogol's treatise. The young critic's view was quite different from popular hostility toward "Vybrannye mesta" and laid the foundation for his "organic criticism." The resulting essay was entitled "Young Apollon Grigor'ev on Gogol." I continued my research on Gogol in the 1990's and wrote an article, "The Fussy Genius: Gogol and Mickiewicz Through Pushkin's Eyes," suggesting that Gogol, along with Mickiewicz, served as a prototype for the Improviser in "Egyptian Nights."

Perception of History in Literature

In 1982, I joined the Pushkinists and began studying Romanticism, in particular, the German Romantics' idea of history and how it influenced Pushkin's concept of Russia's historical development. Out of this came my master's thesis, "Pushkin vs. Herder: History and Legend in Pushkin's Work" (1985). History is conveyed to the Romantics through specific patterns that form the Romantic legend, which is a transformed historical reality. I borrowed the term from hagiography: historia\/ refers to what did happen to a saint; legenda is something invented later on by his followers for the purposes of teaching Christians how to live properly. Despite the great significance that the discovery of the idea of history by the Romantics had, the very idea was ambiguous and limited. It is largely Pushkin's historical poetry and prose that makes us consider him a Romantic.

Since 1997, I have been collecting materials for a book, "Pompeii: Deserted Cities and Catastrophes in Literature," which I consider a continuation of my research on the perception of history in literature. The book examines literary accounts of ancient history by Russian poets of the early nineteenth- through twentieth centuries (from K. Batiushkov to V. Khodasevich). I have also studied various literary accounts of catastrophic and sensational events and wrote a paper, "Sensation in Russian Literature."

Comparative Literature

My master's thesis focused on the eighteenth century European mind-set and its reflection in Pushkin's work. In the following years, I continued to compare works by European authors with those of their Russian counterparts.

In 1986, I began writing a series of essays on French rationalism and Russian lyric poetry, which later formed part of my dissertation. European culture went through a long evolution from the rationalism of the Classics to modern poetry, which is based on associations, often even absurd, and sometimes has no explicit structure. The struggle between the Classics' rational structure and the Romantics' irrationalism is reflected in Pushkin's work. I have reconsidered Pushkin's complete works\/ and tried to prove that many drafts and incomplete poems should be considered as finished and complete. The title of my dissertation is "Pushkin and the French Tradition of Poesie Pensee."

Later I explored contemporary literary trends and, in particular, the postmodernist tradition in Europe and Russia. In 1996-97, I wrote an article, "Venedikt Erofeev and Milan Kundera: the Devilish Angels," in which I compared the famous Russian writer's postmodernist thought with that of his Czech contemporary.

19th Century Women Writers

In 1984-1995, I contributed to the "Encyclopedia of Russian Writers of the 19th Century" being published in Moscow (9 entries). This was the first attempt by Russian philologists to include all\/ the writers of the nineteenth century, even the lesser known ones, in a single source. In the Russian archives, I found works and personal data of many female authors I had never heard of before. After I wrote the encyclopedia entries on these women I felt a need to further investigate their literary careers. I published an essay on Russian female poetry, "Made of Mignonettes, Violets and Lilies," which compared a nineteenth century amateur poet E. Bibikova with her contemporary, professional poet M. Lisitsyna. In the essay, I focused on how the devotion to literature destroyed a woman's family and social status. Later I focused more on Lisitsyna's work and wrote an article on it, "Maria Lisitsyna." I continued studying female authors and explored the novels of the enigmatic and prolific contemporary writer, Faina Grimberg. This resulted in a paper, "50 European Authors and One Faina Grimberg."

Contemporary Literary Trends

In 1989, I began my studies of contemporary Russian literature and language. As a poet I took part in the literary life of Moscow in the 1980s and wrote reviews of both underground and official trends. In 1990 and 1991 I delivered several lectures in Scandinavia and worked for the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm. I wrote reviews of contemporary poetry and fiction. I have also worked as a literary critic, written for Literaturnaia gazeta\/, and published articles on contemporary Russian literature for the Swedish monthly Bonniers Literary Magazine\/ (on contemporary poetry, 1990; on Solzhenitsyn, 1991).

Intellectual History

The study of contemporary literature is closely linked to my research of the modern Russian intellectuals' Weltanschauung. In my essay, "Russian Eschatology," I considered the Russian way of thinking and creativity. I used the definition given by N. Berdiaev, the "eschatological attitude," that goes back to the Great Schism (later defined as "binary system" by Y. Lotman), and analyzed contemporary Russian literary criticism and journalism in this regard. The essay prompted me to collect materials on Russian intellectuals widely known as the intelligentsia. From 1991 to 1997, I interviewed Russian intellectuals in Russia and abroad attempting to characterize the contemporary intelligentsia, to determine the material and spiritual condition of different groups of this class in modern Russia, and to predict its future development. I have also studied various comments on the intelligentsia in contemporary Russian press, literature and film. I came to a conclusion that, despite numerous claims that the Russian intelligentsia are no longer more than a national myth, they have survived the upheavals of the twentieth century both as an ideal and as a social group of nearly fifteen million people. I wrote an essay on the appearance of religious beliefs in the place of the former "literary mind-set," socialist and atheist ideology ( "You Are The Salt of the Earth.") I have began writing a monograph on the intelligentsia (working title: "Stalin and Ants: On the Future of a `Useless Class'").

Cultural Patterns and Language Idioms

Along with researching the intelligentsia, I studied the cultural patterns that shaped and molded their life and thought. This research resulted in the appearance (in 1997 and 2001, first and second updated edition respectively) of the monograph, "Inside the Russian Soul: A Historical Survey of Russian Cultural Patterns." I reported on the ideas of this work in a paper, "Idiomatic Culture." My goal was to provide readers with sine qua non cultural and linguistic patterns that any educated Russian builds associations upon and relates to. Russians learn these ideas and images in their early years; some patterns add up to the stock as time goes by. This is why the book reflects recent cultural changes such as the division of a formerly united culture into a number of subcultures, the evolution of cultural norms as a result of the new socio-economic realia, and the revival of Russian religious and national orthodoxy. The book is a scholarly study of the old and new elements of the Russian mind-set; however, it may also be used as a text for upper-level courses on Russian culture or intellectual history.

In 1992--1999, I wrote a series of short stories about the culture of 20th century Russia. They were translated into English by Marian Schwarz and published in the USA and Britain in The Literary Review, The Two Lines: A Journal of Literary Translation, and Glas. In 2001, I completed a novel, "Lis [The Fox]," about a Soviet arms trader in Ethiopia. I have also written a series of essays on the USA and Europe, "Symmetries," published as a column in Novaya Gazeta weekly (Moscow) and Kontrapunkt monthly (Boston).

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