#gasparov

[eestoria]

[eestoria]

(It has to be kept in mind that the idea of “ascendency” in literary life, and especially in Russian literary life, is by no means always associated with numerical or institutional supremacy. More often it involves largely symbolic indications of cultural prestige, whose role in society may nonetheless be quite important. In fact, possessing an understated and unfixed nature may make their authority that much stronger.)

Lotman, I︠urii, Lidii︠a︡ Ginzburg, and Boris Uspenskiĭ. The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History. Ed. Alexander D. Nakhimovsky and Alice S. Nakhimovsky. Trans. Boris Gasparov. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985, p15

[eestoria]

“Literature and all the social mechanisms associated with it—literary movements and criticism, literary circles and debates about the role of literature in society, all that can in sum be called “literary life”—have played an exceptional role in Russian culture during the past two centuries. Russian literary life has been far more than one component among the many that make up social life. In the nineteenth century in particular, it served as a replacement for those political, social, legal, and even economic phenomena that could not develop fully in Russian society. Literary works and literary debates were seen as a substitutes—if not complete, then at least symbolic—for all the activities whose normal manifestations were blocked by political conditions, and perhaps also by psychological difficulties created by the social structure. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, and particularly after Pushkin, many educated Russians saw their literature as an all-embracing “guide to life.” Literature was regarded, and even regarded itself, as containing the solution to moral problems and the answer to cardinal philosophical questions. It was a political program for the transformation of society, a codex of individual behavior, a way of understanding the national past, and a source of prophecy about the future.”

Lotman, Iurii, Lidiia Ginzburg, and Boris Uspenskiĭ. The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History. Ed. Alexander D. Nakhimovsky and Alice S. Nakhimovsky. Trans. Boris Gasparov. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985, p 13