Contenu du sommaire

The Origins of Description : The Sources of Mimesis in Eighteenth-Century Russian Narrative The present paper aims to uncover some of the sources of description in early Russian narrative, by examining passages from Mixail Čulkov's collection of "Slavic Tales", Peresmešnik (The Mocker), published between 1766 and 1768. I argue that these sources were both iconographical and literary. Among them are André Félibien's descriptions of Court celebrations in Versailles and/or texts by Russian imitators of Félibien. Such depictions were not detailed enough though to provide a ready-to-use pattern of description. Therefore, Čulkov probably also used an iconology. Despite the fact that the most famous of iconologies, written in 1593 by Cesare Ripa, was not translated into Russian in the 18th century, Russian readers could use French imitations of Rippa's work. In conclusion, the article demonstrates Čulkov's radical departure from the usual use of iconologies. Whereas these were supposed to help readers to become familiar enough with mythological figures so that they could instantly identify them without the need of relying on annotations, Čulkov dismantled this technique and replaced it with textual description, thus advancing the method of depiction in 18th century Russian prose.

The Paris Experience of Vasilij Trediakovskij : Some Definitions The article focuses on the character of Trediakovskij 's studies in Paris and on the literary context of his book The Voyage to the Island of Love. This context determined his choice of the Paul Tallemant's novel and his orientation on the French model of the 'littérature galante' (17th – first third of the 18th century).

Émile Gallé and Some Trends of Russian Art Nouveau An unknown drawing of a dinner-service (1894?) made for Russia (Émile Gallé has very likely took part in its making) serves as an example of his brief interest in Russian folk motifs, followed by Gallé's rejection of the Russian Art Nouveau aesthetics. This article contains an analysis of the polemics which took place in French art criticism, during the 1900's between Gallé, as a protagonist of 'Japanism' and singular 'naturalism' in the European Art Nouveau, and the adherents of the new aesthetics suggested by Russian art, in particular, by works made in the 'New-Russian style' based on folklore and Russian national myth.

Iteration and Duration in the Short Stories of Leonid Andreev In the first years of the 20th century, after the initial period of his career when he produced essentially sentimental prose, L. Andreev favoured repetition and duration. In other words, he preferred the imperfective to the perfective of narrative transformation and change. This choice did not result in naturalism, nor in stylised sketches, but rather, in stories such as Stena, Bezdna, Ben-Tovit, Gubernator, luda Iskariot or Rasskaz o semi povešennyx, lyrical prose. It also produced stream of consciousness literature, a completely unexplored genre in Russia at the time.

The New Year's Letter of Marina Cvetaeva : What Manuscripts can bring to Poetical Study In 1927, Marina Cvetaeva wrote the New Year's Letter in memory of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most important poems in her creative thinking. Our study is built on a double approach at the intersection between the text and the manuscript. Cvetaeva's archive provides us with an interesting material, including ail the drafts and the fair copy. Our method is based on the one hand on genetic criticism, which considers the drafts as an independent object, and on the other hand on Russian textology, which is oriented toward the establishment of scientific editions of texts. We also refer to the poetics of verse of Mixail Gašparov and to the structuralist method applied to manuscripts by Jurij Lotman. Our study is first and foremost a poetical study but it takes into account the transformations and movement of the poem during the time of its creation to show the dynamics of poetical discourse, and put forward a genetic poetics or a poetics of writing.

Herzen in 1848 : An Account of the Rouen On several occasions Herzen made reference to the Rouen riots of April 1848, which were harshly suppressed. His accounts of this event have been broadly substantiated by historians. Like the insurrection of June 1848 in Paris, the 'butchery' in Rouen aroused his indignation and contributed to his long-term sense of despair about the state of France and Europe.