2024-03-28T14:07:49Zhttps://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/oai/requestoai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/17122021-03-24T14:25:00Zcom_10023_111com_10023_29col_10023_113
The generic originality of Iurii Tynianov's representation of Pushkin in the novels 'Pushkin' and 'The Gannibals'
Rush, Anna
Keys, Roger
Iurii Tynianov
A. Pushkin
Tynianov's "Pushkin" and "The Gannibals"
Biography
Historical novel
Historiography
Bildungsroman
'Superfluous men'
Personal myth
This thesis is the first extensive study devoted to the generic originality of Iurii Tynianov’s
representation of Pushkin in his two historical novels, Pushkin (1935-1943) and the abandoned
The Gannibals (1932). Chapter 1 contextualises Tynianov’s contribution to the current debates
on the novel’s demise, ‘large’ form and the worthy protagonist. The conditions giving rise to
contemporary interest in the genres of biography and the historical novel are delineated and the
critical issues surrounding these are examined; Tynianov’s concern to secularise the rigid
monolith of an all but sanctified ‘state-sponsored Pushkin’ and the difficulties of the task are
also reviewed. Chapter 2 shifts the examination of Pushkin as a historical novel to its study
within the generic framework of the Bildungs, Erziehungs and Künstlerromane with their
particular problematics which allowed Tynianov to grapple with a cluster of moral,
philosophical and educational issues, and to explore the formative influences on the
protagonist’s identity as a poet. Chapter 3 explores the concept of history underlying
Tynianov’s interpretation of the characters and events and the historiographical practices he
employed in his analyses of the factors that shaped Pushkin’s own historical thinking. Chapter
4 investigates Tynianov’s scepticism about Abram Gannibal’s and A. Pushkin’s mythopoeia
which reveals itself in Tynianov’s subversively ironical and playful use of myth in both novels.
The Conclusion assesses Tynianov’s contribution to the 20th century fictional Pushkiniana and
reflects on his innovative transgeneric historical novel which broke the normative restrictions
of the genre, elevated it to the level of ‘serious’ literature and made it conducive to stylistic
experimentation.
2011-03-24
2011-03-24
2011
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1712
https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-1712
en
212
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/218922022-01-05T12:56:42Zcom_10023_111com_10023_29col_10023_113
Simeon Denisov's 'Istoria o otsekh i stradal'tsekh solovetskikh' in the Old Believer tradition in Russia
Clepper, Anne M.
This dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first deals with the general historical background to the schism in the Russian Church in the seventeenth century. It looks at the social and political causes, as well as the religious motives behind it. In particular, events leading specifically to the uprising at the Solovki monastery are examined.
The second chapter is primarily concerned with the aftermath of the Solovki uprising, and the influence of the monastery on Old Believers in the early eighteenth century. In particular, the foundations of the Vyg community of Old Believers, under the leadership of Andrei Denisov and later his brother Simeon - the writer of the Istoria о otsekh i stradal'tsekh solovetskikh - is studied. Special attention is given to the literary and educational accomplishments of the community and its contribution to the Old Believer tradition in Russia.
The final chapter concerns the Istoria itself as a work of literature. An examination is made of its structure and stylistic devices. Its place in relation to other literature of the period is also discussed, as is its accuracy and value as an historical document. Finally, the ideology of Simeon Denisov as found in the work is examined.
2021-04-08
2021-04-08
1990
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/21892
en
103p
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/70512019-04-01T09:04:08Zcom_10023_111com_10023_29col_10023_113
Between two worlds : the fairy-tale novels of Aleksandr Fomich Vel'tman
Walmsley, Keith
Whitehead, Claire
Keys, Roger
Between Two Worlds: The Fairy-Tale Novels of Aleksandr Fomich Vel'tman is a thesis devoted to
four of the author’s novels published during the 1830s and 1840s: Koshchei bessmertnyi (1833),
Svetoslavich, vrazhii pitomets (1835), Serdtse i Dumka (1838) and Novyi Emelia, ili Prevrashcheniia
(1845). It argues for the typological unity of these works based on their prominent use of fairy-tale
structures and motifs, and analyses them against the backdrop of their nineteenth-century context,
relating them to the emergence and development of the ‘Romantic fairy tale’ as a literary genre
throughout Europe and to the philosophical and intellectual environment in which they were written.
The thesis thereby seeks to posit these novels as a unique, yet nevertheless organic, response to
contemporary aesthetic issues and trends and to challenge dominant perceptions of Vel’tman’s fiction
as idiosyncratic and unapproachable.
The title itself, Between Two Worlds, reflects the two trajectories of investigation that the thesis
will endeavour to pursue: the paradigmatic, in an analysis of the interplay of fairy-tale and mimetic
elements within the texts, and the diachronic, in viewing how this interplay changes over the course of
the novels against the backdrop of the broader aesthetic evolution from Romanticism to Critical
Realism in Russian letters. After establishing a typological model for the volshebnaia skazka it will
argue that the form is employed in these four works as a discourse of the self, and serves to actualize
the relationship between the individual and the world, the ideal and the real.
Employing a methodology that draws on various psychoanalytical models it will discuss how, in
contemporary theory, the fairy tale can be read symbolically as a discourse of personal development
to meaningful interaction with the surrounding world. Subsequently, it will proceed to show how
Vel’tman’s use of the form in his novelistic creations self-consciously problematizes this basic idea,
as the fairy tale is alternately presented as facilitator of, and obstacle to, such growth. It will analyse in
particular how these novels suggest different readings of the fairy tale and, through a comparison with
other generic systems, different conceptions of its potential truth. Ultimately, it will argue that the
ambiguity of the fairy tale in these works stems from its dual status as both symbolic discourse and
cultural artefact, and that they are as much ‘novels about fairy tales’ as they are ‘fairy-tale novels’.
2015-07-28
2015-07-28
2014
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7051
en
Print and electronic copy restricted until 22nd May 2019
Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations
142
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/24672019-07-01T10:08:13Zcom_10023_111com_10023_29col_10023_113
The work of Aleksandr Grin (1880-1932) : a study of Grin's philosophical outlook
Martowicz, Krzysztof
Keys, Roger
Whitehead, Claire
Existentialism
Ethics
Weltanschauung
Chivalric ethos
Prometheus
Eudaimonology
Happiness
Pantheism
Schopenhauer
Nietzsche
Rousseau
Stoicism
Marcus Aurelius
There has been to date no attempt at a detailed examination of Aleksandr Grin’s
philosophical views interpreted on the basis of his literary work. Whilst some critics have
noted interesting links between the writer’s oeuvre and a few popular philosophers, this has
usually been done in passing and on an ad hoc basis. This thesis aims to fill this gap by
reconstructing Grin’s views in relation to the European philosophical tradition.
The main body of the thesis consists of three parts built on and named after three
essential themes in philosophy: External World, Happiness and Morality.
Part One delineates Grin’s views on nature and civilisation: I argue first that his cult of
nature makes it possible to conceive of Grin as a pantheistic thinker close to Rousseau and
Bergson, and then I reconstruct the author’s criticism of urbanisation and industrialisation.
In the second part I assess the place of happiness in Grin’s world-view, indicating its
similarities to the philosophy of various thinkers from the Ancients to Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche. After sketching a general picture of the concept of happiness in Grin’s works, I
discuss the place of material and immaterial factors in the writer’s outlook. I also gather
maxims expressed by the protagonists in his fiction that can be taken as recommendations
concerning ways of achieving and defending happiness. Finally, I link happiness with the
problem of morality in Grin’s oeuvre.
In the final part I examine modes of moral behaviour as displayed by the author’s
protagonists. Firstly, I argue that in Grin’s works we find numerous examples and themes that
allow us to perceive him as an existentialist. Secondly, I indicate Grin’s adherence to rules of
conduct commonly associated with chivalric literature. Thirdly, I emphasise the importance of
Promethean-like characters in the moral hierarchy of Grin’s protagonists.
2012-03-27
2012-03-27
2011-11-30
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2467
en
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
vii, 211
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
oai:research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk:10023/19172019-04-01T09:04:13Zcom_10023_111com_10023_29col_10023_113
'Post-Soviet neo-modernism' : an approach to 'postmodernism' and humour in the post-Soviet Russian fiction of Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin
Dreyer, Nicolas D.
Keys, Roger
Post-Soviet Russian literature
Postmodernism
Post-Soviet neo-modernism
Post-Soviet humour
Vladimir Sorokin
Vladimir Tuchkov
Aleksandr Khurgin
Post-Soviet Russian fiction
Russian postmodernism
"Blue fat" ("Goluboe salo")
Post-Soviet satire
Post-Soviet use of skaz
Russian modernism
Post-Soviet grotesque
Tat'iana Tolstaia ("Kys'")
Post-Soviet Russian writers
Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung
Coming to terms with the Soviet past
Russian conceptualism
The Russian absurd
Literary deconstruction and parody of Soviet history
The present work analyses the fiction of the post-Soviet Russian writers,
Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin against the
background of the notion of post-Soviet Russian postmodernism. In doing
so, it investigates the usefulness and accuracy of this very notion, proposing
that of ‘post-Soviet neo-modernism’ instead. Common critical approaches to
post-Soviet Russian literature as being postmodern are questioned through
an examination of the concept of postmodernism in its interrelated historical,
social, and philosophical dimensions, and of its utility and adequacy in the
Russian cultural context. In addition, it is proposed that the humorous and
grotesque nature of certain post-Soviet works can be viewed as a creatively
critical engagement with both the past, i.e. Soviet ideology, and the present,
the socially tumultuous post-Soviet years.
Russian modernism, while sharing typologically and literary-historically
a number of key characteristics with Western modernism, was particularly
motivated by a turning to the cultural repository of Russia’s past, and a
metaphysical yearning for universal meaning transcending the perceived fragmentation
of the tangible modern world. Continuing the older Russian tradition
of resisting rationalism, and impressed by the sense of realist aesthetics
failing the writer in the task of representing a world that eluded rational
comprehension, modernists tended to subordinate artistic concerns to their
esoteric convictions. Without appreciation of this spiritual dimension, semantic
intention in Russian modernist fiction may escape a reader used to
the conventions of realist fiction. It is suggested that contemporary Russian
fiction as embodied in certain works by Sorokin, Tuchkov and Khurgin, while
stylistically exhibiting a number of features commonly regarded as postmodern,
such as parody, pastiche, playfulness, carnivalisation, the grotesque, intertextuality
and self-consciousness, seems to resume modernism’s tendency
to seek meaning and value for human existence in the transcendent realm, as
well as in the cultural, in particular literary, treasures of the past. The closeness
of such segments of post-Soviet fiction and modernism in this regard is,
it is argued, ultimately contrary to the spirit of postmodernism and its relativistic
and particularistic worldview. Hence the suggested conceptualisation
of post-Soviet Russian fiction as ‘neo-modernist’.
2011-07-14
2011-07-14
2011-06-23
Thesis
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1917
en
349
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews
Department of Russian