Slovo 15.1, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62229/slv15.1
ARTICLES
Abstract. The present work investigates the motif of the crime “that goes unpunished” in the work of Alexander Pushkin, emphasizing the moral and psychological dimension of the crime, in the socio-cultural context of Russian literature. We aim to analyze the complexity of the criminal act and its consequences beyond the (essentially non-existent) legal dimension, emphasizing the idea that a universally true punishment manifests itself through inner suffering and moral decline.
We argue that, in Pushkin’s oeuvre, crime does not necessarily attract a legal or social sanction, but generates a deeper punishment, of a moral nature, which derives from the feeling of self-condamnation and the impossibility of reconciliation with oneself. This approach reflects an existential and tragic vision of the human condition, in which moral turmoil becomes the supreme court.
Keywords: crime; punishment; unpunished; moral decline; inner suffering.
DOI: 10.62229/slv15/1
Abstract. In her essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown”, Virginia Woolf recognises the pivotal role of the reader 40 years before Reader Response Theory came around, as she argues that reader and writer should see themselves as equals in the creation of a book (Woolf 1924: 23). In this article, we investigate how writing and reading together weave intertextual webs. Although Barthes’ wide sense of intertext informs many of this paper’s claims, we will focus mainly on a phenomenon of intense intertextuality: adaptation. More specifically, we will analyse writers and readers as character typologies in a miniature intertextual web: Virginia Woolf’s own Mrs Dalloway, Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, and the film The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry. We chose these three texts, because the processes at play in adaptation are mirrored by an intensified preoccupation with readers and writers when it comes to the content proper. This is a methodological artifice meant to instrumentalize metatextual phenomena to shed light on how one should approach texts themselves. Finally, we decided to include in our analysis the film adaptation as well, even though it does not deviate greatly from its hypotext, because the specificity of the medium does in fact reveal insights and demands theoretical repositioning in regard to our analysis of reading and writing.
Keywords: intertextuality; adaptation; Reader-Response; Mrs Dalloway; Roland Barthes; reading; writing.
DOI: 10.62229/slv15/2
Abstract. This article examines the representation of narrative time in Evgeny Vodolazkin’s novel Laurus in comparison with temporal concepts in Old Russian hagiography. The study begins with an overview of narrative time within contemporary narrative theory, establishing a general theoretical framework for the subsequent analysis. It then turns to the representation of time in the context of Old Russian hagiography, focusing on two key aspects: Dmitry Likhachov’s concept of timeless, eternal time, in which meaningful events coexist outside chronology, and A. F. Uzhankov’s models of linear and cyclical time in Old Russian literature. The study reveals that Vodolazkin adopts the poetics of hagiographic time, preserving the categories of timelessness and linear progression while transforming the cyclical model into a spiral one, where recurring events gain new meaning through the protagonist’s inner transformation. The article concludes by discussing how Laurus both aligns with and challenges the conventions of the modern novel through its genre hybridity and other characteristic features.
Keywords: Evgeny Vodolazkin; Laurus; narrative time; Old Russian literature; hagiography; timelessness; models of time; linear, cyclical, and spiral time.
DOI: 10.62229/slv15/3
Abstract. This study analyzes the political imaginary in the literature of Andrei Platonov, highlighting the tension between the utopian momentum of the revolution’s beginning and the absurdity of everyday Soviet existence. Drawing on letters and major literary works (Chevengur, The Foundation Pit, Dzhan, The Juvenile Sea), the essay traces the metamorphoses of Platonov’s imaginary – from a communism infused with humanist ideals to a technologized and violent Bolshevism. In counterpoint to these political projections, Platonov constructs an imaginary world of childhood as a space of resistance and solidarity. The concept of “grey existentialism” proposed here designates the way in which Platonov’s characters embrace the impossibility of existence against the backdrop of a precarious and ideologically oppressive world. The interpretation is brought into dialogue with Sartre’s theories of imagination and with Camus’s ethics of the absurd, suggesting a convergence between Platonov’s universe and the discreet heroism of Camusian figures.
Keywords: imaginary, revolution, communism, grey existentialism.
DOI: 10.62229/slv15/4
Abstract. A remarkable personality who contributed significantly to the enrichment of the bibliophile treasure of the Neamț Monastery was the hieromonk Pahomie. Between 1704 and 1706 he undertook a journey to Russia, during which he met with Metropolitan Dimitry of Rostov. He received from the hand of the Russian prelate a valuable manuscript about hesychasm written in Old Church Slavonic. The text of the manuscript is closely related to the Gospel texts. In this article we pay particular attention to the notes placed on some pages of this manuscript, which summarize its historical and theological value.
Both the text of the manuscript and the notes on the file are of great historical importance, as they are evidence of the meeting of the two great ecclesiastical personalities.
Keywords: Slavic philology; Romanian-Russian cultural contacts; religious studies.
DOI: 10.62229/slv15/5