A.M. GORKY INSTITUTE OF WORLD LITERATURE
Issues
From the History of the Literary Heritage Academic Series: The Pushkin Volume (Vols. 16–18)
- DOI:
- EDN:
- УДК / UDK: 821.161.1.0
- Publication Type: Research Article
- Received: 28.08.2025
- Approved after reviewing: 27.10.2025
- Date of publication: 25.12.2025
- Issue:
no. 4 (38), 2025
- Funding Sources:
The research was carried out at A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant no. 25-18-00196 “From Early Writers’ Associations to the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Writers: The Genesis of Institutional Forms in the Cultural Construction of the RSFSR/ USSR (Digital Archive of Documentary Data and Research)” (https://rscf.ru/project/25-18-00196/).
- Abstract:
The article examines the history of the preparation of the “Pushkin” volume from the series “Literary Heritage” (vols. 16–18, Moscow, Zhurgazo”bedinenie Publ., 1934), which became one of the most ambitious projects in Soviet literary studies of the 1930s. The focus of the study is on analyzing the strategies employed by Ilya S. Zilberstein and Ivan V. Sergievsky to interact with the methodological “heritage” of pre-revolutionary and early Soviet Pushkin studies. As curators of this project, they accused their predecessors of being “micro-conceited,” obsessed with small biographical details, and lacking a systematic approach to the poet’s biography and work. In contrast, the volume of Literary Heritage was positioned as the beginning of a “Marxist-Leninist” study of Pushkin, where his work was to be analyzed not only as an aesthetic but also as a social and historical phenomenon. At the same time, the preparation of this volume reflected the struggle between scientific schools: Leningrad textualists and Moscow researchers had different views on the objectives of the “new” Pushkin studies. Despite its openly ideological rhetoric, the collection retained its scientific value not only because of the publication of unique materials, but also because of its attempt to synthesize historical, literary, and sociological approaches to Pushkin’s biography and works. The article provides a detailed analysis of the publication’s editorial policies, key methodological principles, and the ideological context in which the “Pushkin” volume of “Literary Heritage” was created.
- Keywords: intellectual history, history of science, history of soviet literary studies, soviet Pushkin studies, ideology and philology, Literary Heritage, Alexander S. Pushkin, Ilya S. Zilberstein, Boris V. Tomashevsky.
- For citation:
Tsyganov, D.M. “From the History of the ʽLiterary Heritage’ Academic Series: The Pushkin Volume (Vols. 16–18).” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 4 (38), 2025, pp. 434–470. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2025-38-434-470
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