Article

Name: “Special Path” of Siberian literature? (Experience in the reconstruction of historiosophical and literary critical sources of Siberian regionalism)

Authors: Alexander Yu. Gorbenko

Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University named after V. P. Astafiev, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

An attempt is presented to reconstruct the historiosophical and literary-critical sources of Grigory Potanin’s article “A novel and a story in Siberia.” This article is key to the literary criticism of the “senior” regionalists. Consideration is given to two phenomena: 1) the Russian literature of the 19th century, regarded as “incorrect” as it was forced to evolve rapidly due to the lagging in its development (the consequence of the forced modernization of Russia), and 2) Western European literature, regarded “normal” and supplying the Russian literature with forms seen as models. These two phenomena were reproduced several decades later on a more local scale though less consistently: 1) Russian literature, having become “normative” for the Russian reader by the 1870s, and 2) the literature of Siberia lagging in its development compared to Russian literature. The leaders of Siberian regionalism would speak about the “specialness” of Siberia when comparing it both with Russia and Europe, with this “specialness” requiring a special representation. Considering criticism as an institution that “supervises” literature, Potanin, as his associate and friend Yadrintsev, suggested a radical thesis about the absence of literature in Siberia in his article. At the same time, relying on Karamzin’s article “Why are there few author talents in Russia?” and the first “Philosophical Letter” by Chaadaev, Potanin joins the discourse of the “shortage” of literature generated by several Russian critics of the first third of the 19th century. Potanin’s thought follows the paradigm formed in literary criticism and historiosophical discourse of this period.

Keywords: Potanin, Yadrintsev, Pushkin, Karamzin, Chaadaev, Siberian literature, regionalism, historiosophy, belated modernity

Bibliography:

Anisimov K. V. Problemy poetiki literatury Sibiri 19 – nachala 20 veka: Osobennosti stanovleniya i razvitiya regional’noy literaturnoy traditsii [Problems of the poetics of the literature of Siberia of the 19th – early 20th centuries: Features of the formation and development of the regional literary tradition]. Tomsk, TSU Publ., 2005, 304 p.

Anisimov K. V. Klimat kak “zakosnelyy separatist”. Simvolicheskie i politicheskie metamorfozy sibirskogo moroza [The climate is like a “stubborn separatist”. Symbolic and political metamorphoses of the Siberian frost]. New Literary Observer. 2009, no. 99, pp. 98–114.

Atnashev T., Velizhev M. “Osobyy put’”: ot ideologii k metodu [The “Special path”: from ideology to method]. In: “Osobyy put’”: ot ideologii k metodu [The “Special path”: from ideology to method]. T. Atnashev, M. Velizhev, and A. Zorin (Comps.). Moscow, NLO, 2018, pp. 9–35.

Chmyhalo B. A. Molodaya Sibir’: Regionalizm v istorii russkoy literatury [Young Siberia: Regionalism in the history of Russian literature]. Krasnoyarsk, KGPI, 1992, 200 p.

Gasparov M. L. Antinomichnost’ poetiki russkogo modernizma [Antinomy of the poetics of Russian modernism]. In: Gasparov M. L. Izbrannye trudy [Selected works]. Moscow, LRC Publishing House, 1997, vol. II. O stikhakh [About poetry]. pp. 434–455.

Hobsbawm E. Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914. In: The Invention of Tradition. E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (Eds.). Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983, pp. 263–307.

Lotman Yu. M. “Ezda v ostrov lyubvi” Trediakovskogo i funktsiya perevodnoy literatury v russkoy kul’ture pervoy poloviny 18 veka [“Riding to the island of love” by Trediakovsky and the function of translated literature in Russian culture in the first half of the 18th century]. In: Lotman Yu. M. O russkoy literature [About Russian literature]. St. Petersburg, Iskusstvo-SPB, 1997a, pp. 168–175.

Lotman Yu. M. Literatura v kontekste russkoy kul’tury 18 veka [Literature in the context of Russian culture of the 18th century]. In: Lotman Yu. M. O russkoy literature [About Russian literature]. St. Petersburg, Iskusstvo-SPB, 1997b, pp. 118–167.

Morson G. S. Introduction: Literary History and the Russian Experience. In: Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies. G. S. Morson (Ed.). Stanford, California, Stanford Univ. Press, 1986, pp. 1–30.

Remnev A. V. “Korotkiy” 19 vek Sibiri: sibirskoe vremya i prostranstvo [The “Short” 19th century of Siberia: Siberian time and space]. In: Izobretenie veka. Problemy i modeli vremeni v Rossii i Evrope 19 stoletiya [Invention of the century. Problems and models of time in Russia and Europe in the 19th century]. E. Vishlenkova, D. Sdvizhkov (Eds.). Moscow, NLO, 2013, pp. 229–250.

Shcherbenok A. Dekonstruktsiya i russkaya klassicheskaya literatura: ot ritoriki teksta k ritorike istorii [Deconstruction and Russian classical literature]. Moscow, NLO, 2005, 232 p.

Serebrennikov N. V. O situatsii v oblastnikovedenii [On the situation in regional studies]. In: Sibirskiy tekst v russkoy kul’ture: Sb. st. [The Siberian text in Russian culture: Coll. art.]. A. P. Kazarkin, N. V. Serebrennikov (Eds.). Tomsk, TSU Publ., pp. 86–94.

Vdovin A. V. Kontsept “glava literatury” v russkoy kritike 1830–1860-kh godov [Concept “the head of literature” in Russian criticism of 1830–1860s]. Tartu, Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2011, 238 p.

Velizhev M. “Osobyy put’” razvitiya Rossii v 1830-e gody: Sonderweg, gosudarstvo i obrazovannoe obshchestvo [Russia’s “Special path” in the 1830s: Sonderweg, the state, and educated society]. In: “Osobyy put’”: ot ideologii k metodu [The “Special Path”: from Ideology to Method]. T. Atnashev, M. Velizhev, and A. Zorin (Comps.). Moscow, NLO, 2018, pp. 106–140.

Velizhev M. Yazyk i kontekst v russkoy intellektual’noy istorii: pervoe “filoso-

ficheskoe pis’mo” Chaadaeva [Language and context in Russian intellectual history: the first “philosophical letter” of Chaadayev]. New Literary Observer. 2015, no. 135, pp. 71–87.

Zorin A. “Osobyy put’ Rossii” – ideya transformatsionnogo proryva v russkoy kul’ture [“Russia’s Special Path” – the idea of a transformational breakthrough in Russian culture]. In: “Osobyy put’”: ot ideologii k metodu [The “Special Path”: from Ideology to Method]. T. Atnashev, M. Velizhev, and A. Zorin (Comps.). Moscow, NLO, 2018, pp. 36–51.