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Soviet Scholarship on Belinskij

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Elizabeth Kresky
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Extract

The hundredth anniversary of Belinskij's death—now being widely celebrated in the Soviet Union—is perhaps a convenient occasion on which to review the significant published scholarly works which have been devoted to the great Russian critic since 1917. It should be said at the outset that Soviet scholarship on Belinskij is meager in comparison to what has been done on Russian writers of belles lettres such as Puškin and Tolstoj, but it compares more than favorably in volume and quality with the efforts expended on other Soviet favorites among the nineteenth-century Russian literary critics such as Černyševskij, Dobroljubov, and Pisarev.

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Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , October 1948 , pp. 269 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1948

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References

1 The twelfth and last volume of Vengerov's Polnoe sobranie socinenij was published by Gosizdat (Moscow-Leningrad, 1926); selected works of Belinskij appeared in 1919, 1934, and 1947.

2 Pjatidesjatiletnij djadjuška ili strannaja bolezn', a drama in five acts, ed. A. S. Poljankov (Leningrad, 1923); “Neizvestnaja stat'ja V. G. Belinskogo, ‘Ivan Andreevič Krylov,’ ” ed. N. Brodskij, Pečaf i revoljucija, No. 4 (1923), pp. 9-25.

3 Sočinenija Aleksandra Puškina (Moscow, 1923); Basni Ivana Krylova (Moscow, 1923); Gore ot uma (Moscow, 1923); Kritičeskie stati: Geroj našego vremeni, Stikhotvorenija M. Lermontova (Leningrad, 1923); Pis'mo k Gogolju (Moscow, 1923); Stati o Gogole (Leningrad, 1923).

4 Ivanov-Razumnik, V., Kniga o Belinskom (Leningrad, 1923)Google Scholar; Plekhanov, G. V., V. G. Belinskij (Moscow, 1923)Google Scholar; Kogan, P., Belinskij (Moscow, 1923)Google Scholar; A. G. Fomin, Belinskij—pedagog (1923); ed. V. Feider, O Belinskom (Leningrad, 1923); V. Gorev, “Belinskij i socializm,” Pečat i revoljucija, No. 4 (1923), pp. 1-8; R. Kantor, “Pis'mo N. V. Gogolja k V. G. Belinskomu,” Krasnyj arkhiv, No. 3 (1923).

5 Piksanov, N. K., Belinskij v krugu sovremmenikov (Moscow, 1924).Google Scholar The two books edited by Piksanov were Letopis žizni Belinskogo and Venok Belinskomu. The latter included two heretofore unpublished letters to V. P. Botkin, speeches made at the anniversary celebration by Lunačarskij, Kogan, Sakulin, and Jušin-Sumbatov, and articles by various Soviet students of Belinskij's writings.

6 Pypin, A. N., Belinskij, ego žizn' i perepiska (St. Petersburg, 1908)Google Scholar.

7 Three of the semipopular books which were published in this period were: Kubikov, I., Belinskij, žizn’ i literaturnaja dejatel'nost’ (Moscow, 1924)Google Scholar; Iovčuk, M., Belinskij, ego filosofskie i socialno-političeskie vzgljady (Moscow, 1939)Google Scholar; Vodovozov, N., Belinskij (Moscow, 1944).Google Scholar The more important scholarly contributions were: Kleman's compilation of the reminiscences of Belinskij's contemporaries about him, Vissarion Grigorevič Belinskij v vospominanijakh sovremennikov (Leningrad, 1929); Poljanskij's article on Belinskij in Očerki po istorii russkoj kritiki, ed. A. Lunačarskij and V. Poljanskij (Moscow-Leningrad, 1929); Lunacarskij's section on Belinskij in his book Kritika i kritiki (Moscow, 1938); Lavreckij, A., Belinskij, Černyševskij, Dobroljubov v borbe za realizm (Moscow, 1941)Google Scholar; and Poljanskij, V., V. G. Belinskij, literaturno-kritičeskaja dejatel'nost’ (Moscow-Leningrad, 1945)Google Scholar.

8 One notable exception concerns Belinskij's first article, “Literary Dreams,” with its theme “we do not have a literature.” Iovčuk denies that this was the theme; Blagoj says this was merely an extreme of Belinskij's first period; and Kirpotin writes that it was not the “real” Belinskij who wrote “we do not have a literature,” but rather the “real” Belinskij who wrote “we will have a literature.” This is an un-Marxian approach which neither takes into account the historical conditions at the time of Belinskij's writing, nor recognizes that Russian literature in the 1830s was, in comparison with European literature, insignificant and that Belinskij was aware of this.

9 It is interesting to note in this connection that in Iovčuk's recommended readings on Belinskij, which he gives in the Appendix of his book, he includes two of his most reactionary articles: “Mencil, Kritik Gëte” and “Očerki Borodinskogo sraženija.”

10 Narodnost’ is one of those untranslatable Russian words. Some have called it “nationality,” others “folkness”; Belinskij defined it, in relation to art, as “that element in art which expresses the peculiar spirit of each country, each people.”

11 Some of the more important articles that appeared in 1936 and 1938 should be mentioned here. The No. 6 (1936) issue of Literaturnyj kritik contained five articles on Belinskij, including a bibliographical survey of all books and articles published about him between 1918 and 1935. Lavreckij's and Ščebrin's articles mentioned above appeared in this issue, and there was one by Makedonov on “The Problem of the Hero in Belinskij's Aesthetics.” Of the 1938 publications, mention should be made of V. Poljanskij's book on Belinskij, Černyševskij, and Dobroljubov entitled Tri velikikh russkikh demokrata (Moscow, 1938), and the following articles: I. Luppol, “Filosofskij put’ V. G. Belinskogo,“ Pod znameniem Marksizmci, No. 10 (1938), pp. 112—35; M. Iovčuk, “Filosofskie i socialno-političeskie vzgljady V. G. Belinskogo,” Front nauki i tekhniki, No. 1 (1938), pp. 73-96; M. Gorkij, “O ‘raznočince’ v russkoi literature 40-kh godov,” Literaturnyj kritik, No. 3 (1938), pp. 9-26; “£Čto čitat’ iz proizvedenij V. G. Belinskogo i o Belinskom,“ Propoganda i agitacija, No. 10 (1938), p. 79; Brovman, G., “Velikij kritik,” Novyj mir, No. 6 (1938), pp. 260-69Google Scholar.

12 Ščerbin, N., “Ponjatie narodnosti u Belinskogo,” Literaturnyj kritik, No. 6 (1936), P. 187 Google Scholar.

13 Fadeev, A. A., “The Tasks of Literary Criticism,” American Review on the Soviet Union , IX, No. 1 (1948), 44 Google Scholar.

14 Ždanov, A. A., “On the Errors of the Soviet Literary Journals, Zvezda and Leningrad ,“ Political Affairs, December, 1946, p. 1123 Google Scholar.

15 Veksler, I., “Tradicii russkoj kritiki 40-60-kh godov v borbe o teoriej ‘čistogo iskusstva’,” Zvezda, February 2, 1947, pp. 150-62Google Scholar.

16 Belinskij, V. G., Socinenija, ed. Pavlenkov, F. (2d ed.; St. Petersburg, 1900), IV, 597 Google Scholar.

17 Lavreckij, A., “Belinskij and Progressive Russian Thought of the 19th Century,” VOKS, December, 1946, p. 12.Google Scholar

18 Lunačarskij, A., Kritika i kritiki, ed. Belcikov, N. F. (Moscow, 1938), p. 133.Google Scholar

19 Lenin, V. I., Sočinenija (Moscow-Leningrad, 1926-1932), IV, 381 Google Scholar; XIV, 218, 219; XVII, 341; XXII, 162; XXX, 192.

20 Glagolev writes of Lenin's appraisal of Belinskij in “ O Vekhakh”: “This appraisal of Lenin is basic for us in characterizing the historic role of Belinskij's criticism, its real class content. Lenin teaches us to examine the activity of each thinker, publicist, critic in connection with the study of the decisive tendencies of the struggle of the classes in each historical epoch. He teaches us to see in Belinskij's activity the reflection of the frame of mind, struggle and protest of the populous masses, oppressed and ruined by landlords. This, and not anything else, defines the fundamental historical meaning of Belinskij'sactivity, the leading line of his ideological development. Belinskij enters the history of Russian criticism as one of the earliest representatives of the revolutionary-democratic tendency in a period when ‘democracy and socialism were blended into one indissoluble, united whole.’ ” ( Glagolev, M., “Estetičeskoe nasledie Belinskogo,” Novyj mir, No. 6 [1936], p. 208 Google Scholar).

21 Sakulin, P. N., Russkaja literatura i socializm (Moscow, 1922).Google Scholar

22 Gorev, B., “Belinskij i socializm,” Pečat i revoljucija, No. 4 (1923), pp. 1–8 Google Scholar.

23 Socializm Belinskogo, ed. P. N. Sakulin (Moscow, 1925).

24 Šulgin, V., “O znakomstve Belinskogo s rabotami Marksa i Engelsa,” Istorik marksist, No. 7 (1940), pp. 82–93 Google Scholar.

25 Belinskij, V. G., Pis'ma, ed. Ljackij, E. A. (St. Petersburg, 1914), III , 87 Google Scholar.

26 V. Poljanskij (P. I. Lebedev) has been one of the main contributors to the Soviet scholarship on Belinskij. He wrote the article on him for the Literaturnaja enciklopedija (Moscow, 1939), the section on Belinskij in Očerki po istorii russkoj kritiki, and perhaps the most comprehensive critical biography, V. G. Belinskij, literaturno-kritičeskaja dejatel'nost’ (Moscow-Leningrad, 1945).

27 This new biography will be an important contribution to the scholarship on Belinskij since it will make use of the seventy new documents on Belinskij which have recently been discovered in the government archives of the district of Penza. The majority of these documents contain facts about Belinskij's years of study in the district school of Cembar and the gymnasium at Penza. The documents which present special interest are those which throw light on the relation of the government circles of tsarist Russia to Belinskij.