New Practices for New Theories?: The Evolution of the Russian Literary Essay in the Early Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable will discuss some of the new directions Russian essayistic writing took as it expanded beyond the publitsistika of the nineteenth century. Our focus is on some of the new forms of theoretical writing which straddled the conventional divide between the expository and the artistic. The essay’s abiding focus on individual experience in the moment meant that in the context of early twentieth-century Modernism, essays both created and challenged metaphysical worlds. On the one hand, a comparison of Tsvetaeva’s late essays with Ol’ga Freidenberg’s criticism will reveal their common interest in analogy and recognition as fundamental to literary creativity. On the other, we shall see how the early Soviet ocherk became an instrument of empiriocriticism. We shall also discuss the essay as lived theory—“suffered through” prose—and its place alongside and within other genres (novel, short story) in the oeuvres of Grossman, Shalamov and Ginzburg. In keeping with the generic fluidity of essayistic writing, this roundtable will range widely between different understandings and functions of the literary qualities of the essay.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Adam Fergus, U of Sheffield (UK)

Roundtable Speakers

• Emily Stetson Van Buskirk, Rutgers, The State U of New Jersey

• Adam Fergus, U of Sheffield (UK)

• Devin Fore, Princeton U

• Daria Khitrova, Harvard U

• Michael M. Kunichika, Amherst College