Contenu du sommaire

Jean-Claude Marcadé, The beginning of Leskov' s literary career. Journalistic activity. 1860 - May 1862. Whilst pursuing his literary career (1860-1895), N. S. Leskov was at the same time engaged in intense journalistic activity. This would deserve a special study that might reveal Leskov's specific methods and his poetic trend as appear in various report articles, serials, recensions, descriptive notices (ocherk), "notes on society" (obshchestvennye zametki), and critical papers of different kinds. Our present study bears on the articles of N. S. Leskov that had preceded the publication of his first literary works (the three short stories, "Pogasshee delo", "Razboinik", and "V tarantase" dating from 1862). The writer's inspiration corresponds to the spirit of the 1860's: he violently denounces the social blemishes in Russia, proclaims the necessity of instruction, of hygiene, of public morality, of women's emancipation, of a humane attitude towards the down-trodden and the condemned. In these first articles we already find the germs of Leskov's style (verbal creations, hyperboles, humour, satire) and also of certain themes that will later on be developed in literary works. A new light is thus thrown on Leskov's political and literary evolution: it is not that his work became more satirical at the end of his life, it always had this particular trend. At the very beginning, the writer states that literature is not distinct from the problems of society but destined to serve the truth which, however, is not to be looked for in a particular socio-political tendency. This position is at the origin of all the misunderstandings that occurred between Leskov and the representatives of the progressist opinion of his period.

J. Kim Munholland, The French army and intervention in Southern Russia, 1918-1919. At the end of World War I French troops landed in southern Russia to support anti-Bolshevik military and political movements in the Ukraine and the Crimea. The French military expedition failed to achieve its objective, however, due to local conditions that prevailed in the region. French military leaders quickly became disillusioned by internal quarrels within the anti-Bolshevik forces that prevented effective collaboration against Bolshevik pressures, and they particularly criticized the Volunteer army for its arrogance toward local population. Strong, anti-foreign feeling among the people of the Ukraine convinced French officers that intervention in a climate of hostility was doomed without massive support. When the French government failed to supply enough equipment and manpower for extensive military operations, the French army faced defeat at the hands of pro-Bolshevik forces and counselled withdrawal of the expedition from Odessa and the Crimea. Military considerations had a decisive influence upon the decision to terminate active intervention and to turn instead to a policy of quarantine toward the Bolshevik regime and indirect aid to the anti-Bolshevik opposition.

Bernard Marchadier, Exhumation of relies in the first years of Soviet power. Based on items published in the review Revoliutsiia i tserkov' which had appeared at irregular intervals from 1919 till 1924, this article recounts the incidents that the atheist propaganda of the period had nicknamed the "epopee of the relics". It is known that the Orthodox Church — as well as the Catholic Church — presents the relics of its Saints to the worship of the faithful. In 1918 and on, this cult was denounced as an unhealthy and barbarous superstition. About 60 corpses were exhumed, exhibited in public and "submitted to scientific examination". This measure of "demystification" was in a sense successful inasmuch as popular beliefs in Russia tend to associate the sanctity of the relics with their incorruptibility. Some dignitaries of the Church were summoned before the courts in connection with the "relics lawsuit" the proceedings of which are summarized herewith.

Aileen Kelly, Empiriocriticism: a Bolshevik philosophy? In the first decade of this century a group of Bolshevik theorists attempted to construct a new philosophical basis for marxism with the aid of the empiriocriticism of Avenarius and Mach. Their attempt is usually treated by historians as merely a brief episode in Bolshevik party history. This article examines its significance within the wider framework of the collective psychology of the Russian radical intelligentsia, in which voluntarism was uneasily reconciled with a predilection for deterministic philosophies of history. The empiriocriticist movement can be seen as a final attempt on the part of the members of the intelligentsia to achieve a synthesis of these elements in their outlook. Their writings and the ensuing polemics are examined with particular regard to the light which they shed on the social psychology of the Russian radical intelligentsia and on the part played by its subjective aspirations in the formulation of its historical goals.

Any Barda, The place of Severnyi vestnik and of A. Volynskij at the beginning of the symbolist movement. The Severnyi vestnik which appeared in St. Petersburg from 1886 to 1896 bears the brand of its editor, A. Volynskii (Akim L'vovich Flekser). Its pages reflect the polemic that starts between "decadents", "impressionnists" and "symbolists" on the eve of the nineties. On the other hand, the stand adopted by Volynskii who forsakes gradually realistic art for the idealistic, can be taken as a model: he formulates all the fundamental problems that will be those of the new current: what is the nature of Art, its essence, its justification? What is the artistic creation?