Slovo 14, 2024: Individ, societate și ideologii: explorări literare și culturale (Individuals, societies and ideologies: literary and cultural explorations)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62229/slv14
Introducere (Introduction), p. 5-8
ARTICLES
Mihnea GUREI
Abstract. This paper provides a close analysis of the complex process by which F.M. Dostoevsky conveys the psychological underpinnings of Romantic ideology in one of his most renowned works, Notes from the Underground. This article will demonstrate that Dostoevsky presents the two extremes of the Romantic type, the angelic and the demonic, as manifestations that coexist simultaneously in the Underground man. The first part of the novel uses the protagonist’s romantic discourse to argue against determinism and rational egoism. The second part shows the main character’s psychological inconsistency, which is largely attributed to a romantic education. The flaw of the Underground man is that he learns Romantic ideology without being a true Romantic. He speaks the language of romanticism but does not live by its ideals. This psychological divide holds him captive in the eponymous Underground.
Keywords: Underground Man; rational egoism; romanticism; freedom; narcissism; superiority complex.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/1
Sergiu LOZINSCHI
Abstract. The article means to investigate the manner in which the novelist creates a female character who has little in common with the Russian literary and cultural canon, through the dynamic in said character’s construction, the ideation and symbolism found in the novel and the postmodern techniques employed (intertextuality, fragmentation, parody, relativization of meanings in the text etc.). Part of the analysis highlights the inclusion of Erofeev’s female character into the array of postmodern protagonists, an antihero with a fragmented personality and a fluid identity, in whose existential universe libertinism, uninhibited sexuality, the absence of any taboo, mental frailty and nihilism, along with sarcasm and resentment towards the world around her, surface. In addition, we’re taking into consideration another deconstructive mechanism of the Russian female archetype, precisely one through which Erofeev attributes to the protagonist roles that, up to that point in literature, had been exclusively assigned to male characters. Thus, Ira acquires the attributes of a reflection character, showcasing numerous social issues, Soviet society’s shortcomings, lack of dignity among writers of that time etc.
Keywords: Erofeev; Postmodernist literature; Russian novel; Russian beauty; intertextuality.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/2
Maria Antonia BANU
Abstract. Romantic thinkers posited that artistic genius was linked to a “divine illness,” underscoring the significance of spontaneity, creativity, and irrationality. A century later, psychologists and psychiatrists have observed a high and repetitive incidence of psychotic behavior among exceptionally creative individuals. The objective of this article is to examine the interconnection between genius and madness, as exemplified by one of the pivotal concerns in Romantic aesthetics: the function of the artist and their creation in Gogol’s short story, “The Portrait”. To this end, I have employed an analytical approach, integrating psychological and narratological concepts to facilitate a comprehensive structural analysis.
Keywords: Romanticism; Gogol; psychology; madness; creativity.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/3
Daria-Elena BLÂNZEANU
Abstract. This paper analyzes dystopian depictions of a totalitarian, authoritarian state, wherein individuality is suppressed and the individual is coerced to become an executor of the directives of the great guiding mind that claims to act for the good of all. The aim of this analysis is to highlight the similarities in the portrayal of a totalitarian state by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Miguel Ángel Asturias, through their novels We and The President. Zamyatin’s perceptions, shaped by his experience of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, are similar to those of Asturias, whose worldview has been shaped by the dictatorial regime of Manuel Estrada Cabrera in Guatemala from 1898 to 1920.
Keywords: dystopia; totalitarianism; evil; control; inability to free oneself.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/4
Erica ILISEI
Abstract. This paper will analyze how A. S. Pushkin’s 1822 poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus reflects an imperialist perspective through its romantic representations of the Orient (Caucasus). Pushkin’s poem addresses an identity question centered on the opposition between the East (represented by the Caucasus) and the West (represented by the Russian Empire). We will undertake the analysis based on the concept of imaginative geography, as developed by Edward Said in his study, Orientalism. In his poem, Pushkin unflinchingly explores the theme of freedom in a plot based on the antithesis between civilization and nature, representative of Romantic ideology. Pushkin uses this artistic device to critically re-evaluate the romantic stereotype of freedom accessible to the individual through escape from society and a return to untouched nature. In the poem’s epilogue, Pushkin unequivocally returns to an eighteenth-century Enlightenment worldview that glorifies civilization and the empire over nature and savagery. The Orient is represented in the poem to underscore two key points: the European, Western identity of Russian culture and the domination of the Russian Empire over the Caucasus.
Keywords: Romanticism; freedom; nature; civilization; Orient.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/5
Ana BULIBAȘ (BOTEZ)
Abstract. The novel Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, published at a time when literature was concerned with the education and formation of the individual, challenges the conventional form of the bildungsroman by focusing on a character who appears to be static and does not develop in accordance with the typical trajectory of a coming-of-age narrative. In order to comprehend the rationale behind the inactivity of the eponymous character, as well as the phenomenon observed in Russian society and generically referred to as “Oblomovism”, we will analyze how the perception of time and space influences the formation of Oblomov’s personality and differentiates him from his active and lively friend Stolz. The antithesis between the two characters represents a fundamental aspect of the novel, underscoring the contrast between two distinct mentalities shaped by opposing perceptions of time and space. Despite its deviations from the conventional structure of a “Bildungsroman”, the novel Oblomov incorporates sufficient elements of the genre to be regarded as an unconventional iteration of this literary type, particularly in its portrayal of the protagonist’s unique relationship with time and space.
Keywords: Bildungsroman; Oblomov; Oblomovism; time; space.
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/6
TRANSLATIONS
Evgheni BARATÎNSKI, Despre iluzii și adevăr, p. 99-102
translation by Sergiu LOZINSCHI
DOI: 10.62229/slv14/7