Mundo Eslavo

Gender Recycling through the Virdžina / Tobelija Tradition

Sabri Zekri Arabzadeh — 2024-12-31

The construction and interpretation of characters with a gender opposite to one's own doesn't occur only in the theatrical context; it also exists in other traditions of a representative nature, particularly those that deal with the issues of performativity and gender changing and/or fluidity. The present study, from a non-binary theatrical perspective, deals with the social construction of the male gender on the body of a biologically female person in the patriarchal Virdžina, known also as Tobelija tradition, formerly practiced in the Western Balkans. As well, this essay explores the applications, interrelationships and interactions between this Balkan practice and the non-binary construction of characters in theater, which would shed light on how gender discourse can be influenced and/or challenged through artistic and cultural intertextuality.

Keywords: Virdžina, Women, Gender, Theatre recycling, Gender performativity.

Lo fantástico en tensión con lo maravilloso en la obra romántica de Órest Sómov y Nikolái Gógol

Alfredo Hermosillo — 2024-12-31

This paper’s objective is to analyze tension in the first stories of Russian romanticism, represented by the work of Órest Somov and the Gogol of the Ukrainian period, between the marvelous and the fantastic, still in the making. It starts from the assumption that, in this nascent prose, folkloric and religious motifs play a fundamental role and that the limits between the natural and supernatural worlds are still blurred; thus there is no frank confrontation, characteristic of the system of the fantastic.

On-route to the City of Torment, From Earthly Prague to the Underworld: Visions of Dante in Spiral Sentences by Daniela Hodrová

María del Pilar Peña-Molina — 2024-12-31

This article is a comparative study of the novel Točité věty by the Czech postmodernist writer Daniela Hodrová and the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The main aim of the study is to establish the similarities between the two and to study the existence of a new orb: the underworld. The work has focused on the study of the structure of both works, their characters and motifs. A fundamental piece for the analysis has been the use of the spiral, both ascending and descending, in the construction of the story through different planes that conform and at the same mirror reality.

The Real Art Concept in the OBERIU Manifesto

Olga Tikhonova — 2024-12-31

This article places the literary movement OBERIU (in Russian, ОБЭРИУ, name presented by an acronym which means the Union of Real Art, in Russian, Объединение Реального Искусства) formed in Leningrad, the USSR, in 1927 and analyses its unique manifesto published by this group in January 1928, whose translation into Spanish is offered below. Apart from the information about the artistic sections that form this current, this proclamation mentions the authors who formed part of it and their creative paths. Moreover, as can be observed throughout the text, the writers justify the importance of the word “real”, which appears in the name of this union and represents an essential part of the members’ philosophy. In addition, considering the historical-political context and the beginning of the repressions in the USSR literary field, the group tries to connect their activity defending the proletariat. Although OBERIU officially existed only for a very brief period of time (1927–1930), its ideas continued the task of the previous avant-gardes and enriched this field with new experiments.

The question of ethical responsibility in the fictional narrative "The fatal eggs" by Mikhail Bulgakov

Josef Dohnal — 2024-12-31

The question of responsibility regarding the application of scientific research findings extends not only to the scientist who makes a discovery and realizes its potential for practical application but also to those involved in implementing the discovery in practice. Bulgakov's prose "The fatal eggs" underscores these two lines of responsibility associated with ethical considerations. The researcher carefully evaluates potential risks, intends to adhere to precautionary principles, and first seeks to understand the exact mechanisms behind the remarkable results of their accidental discovery. However, the discovery is alienated from them when it falls into the hands of an implementer. This implementer, driven by haste, ideological simplicity, and impatience, fails to consider the principles of experimental work. The discovery, applied inadequately, hastily, and unprofessionally, is thus disqualified and irretrievably lost. Bulgakov's fictional narrative, with its dystopian atmosphere, serves as a poignant warning against unethical practices that can devalue a potentially significant invention, transforming it into an instrument of destruction rather than an asset.

The Strugatsky Brothers: Critical Message in the Soviet Science-Fiction Novel

Alberto Barrón Ruiz de la Cuesta — 2024-12-31

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky expressed the criticism of the USSR regime by means of their science-fiction novels, showing in their imagined worlds the imperfections of the Soviet system and their concerns in relation to human nature, reflecting on its potentials and limitations regarding the development of a better future. Through their novels, they embodied the archetype of the Soviet intellectual committed to the ideal of a communist society and disillusioned by the reality of an authoritarian, inefficient and repressive regime. Their conflicts with the strict Soviet censorship voiced the diffused wish of an internal transformation in order to create a more tolerant and human system. This view was displayed through the use of allegories and the conception of fictional worlds, aiming to suggest parallelisms with the USSR, which were understood by the contemporary Soviet readers. The dystopia was a motif that incarnated the pessimism of these authors in regard to the possibilities of progress for the human kind, as it is shown in the novels Hard to Be a God, The Doomed City and Roadside Picnic. Their works became an example inside the USSR for the criticism of Soviet model till its fall, which coincided with the death of Arkadi Strugatsky and the end of their literary production.

Reading The Memoir of a Clairvoyant (1976): Divination, Censorship, and the Past in Late Socialist Poland

Wiktor Gardocki — 2024-12-31

Józef Marcinkowski (1905–1982), alias Akhara Yussuf Mustafa, was a Polish fortune-teller and clairvoyant. He began his career in the first half of the 1930s, gaining fame in the esoteric milieu in Warsaw. During World War II, he was a prisoner in the Dachau and Bergen-Belsen death camps. He described his experiences in The Memoir of a Clairvoyant [Pamiętnik jasnowidza], published first in 1976 and again in 1985 in an impressive print run of two hundred thousand copies. The manuscript was controlled by the Main Office for the Control of Press, Publication and Public Performances. However, the censors’ comments did not concern supernatural aspects, but communist persecutions in the Stalin period, as well as some events at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The purpose of this article is to analyze The Memoir, to present the text and the life of Mustafa against the background of autobiographical documents of other fortune-tellers and clairvoyants active in late socialist Poland, and the reaction of the censors to Mustafa’s book. The first part of the article outlines the main facts of Mustafa’s biography and discusses the most characteristic features of The Memoir. The second part focuses on the socio-cultural context of the text, especially the audience’s attitude towards paranormal phenomena, based on press articles and autobiographical accounts of other psychics, while the third one examines the censor’s opinion from the perspective of communist memory politics.

Don Quixote’s Fortunes in Polish Jazz

Hans Christian Hagedorn — 2025-01-02

While the intense reception of Don Quixote in music has been documented and analyzed by a large number of research works in past decades, little attention has been paid so far to its relationship with popular music, a lack which is especially acute when it comes to the world of jazz. This article—a study in comparative literature and intermediality—deals with a particularly fascinating aspect of this subject, namely the reception of Cervantes’s masterwork in Polish jazz from 1927 to the present. The analysis of several examples, seen in the context of the reception of Don Quixote in Poland in general, and in the context of the historical circumstances in which these compositions and recordings were created, serves to expand current knowledge not only about the profound influence this novel has exercised on Polish culture, but also about its remarkable presence in the world of jazz more broadly.

The Acquisition of Spanish as a Foreign Language by Russian Speakers Through Subtitling

María Teresa Megía Céspedes — 2025-01-02

Among the factors that determine the process of teaching and learning foreign languages, special attention should be paid to the linguistic distance between the mother tongue and the target language. Unlike related languages, typologically different languages, such as Spanish and Russian, which are considered distant languages, lack a shared linguistic and cultural base that would allow students to rely on their mother tongue to communicate in the foreign language. On the contrary, there are significant differences that make the acquisition of the foreign language very difficult. This complexity caused by linguistic and cultural distance often leads to greater frustration as well as lower levels of motivation on the part of learners. This is why it seems necessary to know the profile of the learners in order to adapt the teaching process to their needs and thus achieve optimal learning. In this paper, given the particularities of Russian-speaking learners of Spanish as a foreign language, we propose to implement pedagogical translation, specifically the practice of subtitling, as a complementary activity in order to approach the language from a more dynamic and functional perspective and thus increase learners’ motivation.

Methods of translating Russian-language anthroponyms into Chinese

Maria Shanánina — 2024-12-31

The article studies translation of proper names from Russian into Chinese based on A.Ivanov's novel "Pischeblock". The atricle provides examples of implementation of different translation techniques and analyzes their advantages and disadvantages in transmission of author's intention within given contexts. The authors also offer their own translation solutions with explanations.

Chekhov´s Self-Assessment and Assessments of His Work by His Contemporaries

Andrey Stepanov — 2024-12-31

The author addresses the question of how Chekhov's assessments of his work diverged or, on the contrary, coincided with the assessments of his contemporaries. Chekhov was equally characterized by personal modesty and sobriety of judgment, and therefore his reviews of his own work were often excessively harsh. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the rejection of early Chekhov by contemporary critics is well known. Before the writer became a "living classic", critics found many shortcomings in his stories and plays, but after recognition by the mass reader, the same critics often saw only virtues in the same texts. The Symbolists played a special role in establishing Chekhov's literary reputation, such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely. These Symbolist poets, acting as critics, no longer reproach Chekhov for the lack of a unifying “general idea” and do not see his merit in the fact that he expresses “longing” for such a social idea. They note completely different qualities that are close to themselves: a feeling of uncertainty and understatement, close to the influence of music (Dmitry Merezhkovsky), or a “thinning of reality” almost to a symbol (Andrei Bely). These and other properties of Chekhov’s world, after the performances of the Moscow Art Theater, received the name “Chekhov’s mood” that became entrenched in the public consciousness.

Metapoetic Motifs in the Artistic Structure of A. P. Chekhov’s Novella "The Duel"

Tatyana Alpatova — 2024-12-31

The article examines the system of artistic techniques of A.P. Chekhov, which forms the metapoetic layer in the story “Duel”. The importance of metapoetic motifs in the work is noted, their role in presenting the fundamental idea for Chekhov the writer about mobility, the dynamics of life, the impossibility of a single “correct” statement about a person, a situation, the world around him. A typology of metapoetic motifs in the story is proposed; Particular attention is paid to the specifics of direct metapoetic utterance, which is due to the indication of the “occupation” of the main character – Laevsky (“philologist”). Specific forms of presenting situations of explicit design of the “verbal design” of life impressions are identified (description of nature – assessment / self-esteem of the character – ironic rethinking of the “amalgam” of intertextual references – establishment of a borderline situation of the characters’ transition from a verbal image to the “reality” of the life situation in which they find themselves). Based on the analysis of the story “Duel,” conclusions are drawn about the significance of metapoetic motifs in the writer’s work and about the specifics of their implementation in the system of “indirect utterance” of Chekhov’s prose.

Keywords: A.P. Chekhov, metapoetics, artistic image, interpretation, hero’s speech.

Afterlives of Chekhov’s Short Stories: A Web of Miracles

Ellen Chances — 2024-12-31

The article focuses on certain ways in which Chekhov’s short stories have influenced the works of later creative individuals. There is a brief mention of features of Pablo Neruda’s poetry, in his The Book of Questions, that are reminiscent of features od Chekhov’s short stories. The article also mentions Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Thirteenth String Quartet,” which, to the composer, reminded him of Chekhov’s story, “The Black Monk.” Bob Dylan based an album of his on Chekhov’s short stories. The bulk of the article concentrates on the affinities with Chekhov of a selection of short stories by the North American writers Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Eudora Welty. Joyc Carol Oates’ “The Lady with the Pet Dog” shifts the perspective from Gurov’s viewpoint, in “The Lady with the Little Dog,” to that of Anna. Alice Munro, in “Walker Brothers Cowboy,” displays features that are similar to those in Chekhov’s “Beauties.” Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” has connections to Chekhov’s “About Love,” Eudora Welty, in “A Worn Path,” like Chekhov, endows her characters with dignity, despite their flaws. Like Chekhov, Welty does not judge her characters. The article suggests that Welty’s “The Winds” is indebted to Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine.” John Cheever’s stories, like Chekhov’s, show irresolution. An admirer of Chekhov’s drama and of his prose, Cheever, in his story, “The Day the Pig Fell into the Well,” reflects themes of “The Cherry Orchard” as well as of Chekhov’s stories.

Parallels of the Sharp Ironic Style of O. I. Senkovsky’s Prose in A. P. Chekhov’s Work

Josef Dohnal — 2024-12-31

The present article is a search for thematic and stylistic interrelations between A. P. Chekhov's story ‘What is most often found in novels, novellas, etc.?’ and O. I. Senkovsky's story ‘Autumn Boredom’, published almost half a century earlier. Senkovsky, ironising over the tendencies fashionable in the first third of the 19th century in social life and literature influencing it, in a sufficiently developed form elevates them to an absolute and thus openly condemns them. A. P. Chekhov, in a much more concise form, essentially only listing what to him appear to be the recurrent strains of literary works of the last third of the 19th century, achieves the same satirical and ironising tone of the work itself. The stories, which differ sharply from each other in style, however, point to a large extent to the same phenomena, which do not seem to have disappeared, but still have their place in Chekhov's contemporary literature. Both works share the writers' common ground in their view of the unproductive strains of contemporary literature and are an interesting testimony to the ironic-critical beginning of their talent.

The reception of Chekhov's theater during Franco's regime according to the archive of theatrical censorship of the General Administration Archive (1948-1978)

Iván García Sala — 2024-12-31

During Franco's regime, all theatrical works had to be authorized by the censorship in order to be performed, including Chekhov's theater, whose reception was consolidated in Spain in the 1960s. This article analyzes the censorship files of Chekhov's plays preserved in the General Archive of the Administration. On the one hand, it creates an overview of all the plays that were submitted to censorship between 1948 and 1978, which determines the periods of greatest presence of Chekhov's texts on the Spanish stage, and shows that the short comedies were the most performed and disseminated throughout Spain. Those responsible for this diffusion were the independent, university and school groups. On the other hand, the analysis of the censors' reports and opinions determines that censorship was not particularly severe with Chekhov's theater. It always authorized its representations and only caused slight objections to some of the moral transgressions of the characters.

Anton Chekhov in Juan Eduardo Zúñiga: Aesthetic Affinities

José Antonio Escrig Aparicio — 2024-12-31

Juan Eduardo Zúñiga's work approached Russian literature not only as a source of study but also as a space that gave meaning to his way of understanding the world and of approaching the process of creation and the meaning of artistic work. His link with Ivan Turgenev was particularly close and resulted in a pioneering essay, but the affinity with Anton Chekhov, more subtle and disseminated throughout the whole of his work, allows us to understand fundamental aspects of the Spanish writer's imagination and to review some of the Russian author's works in a new light. This article is an approach to the study of the aesthetic roots from which they both derive. Through the analysis of shared figures in their works (the useless man, the strong woman), common generic frameworks (the provincial novel) and symbols of transformation present in some of their most emblematic stories (‘The Student’, ‘The Message’), it shows this relationship of contiguity by which both authors are inserted in the best tradition of modern symbolism, beyond local labels or journalistic or mechanical readings that separate what in the development of the human imagination appears united.

The Kiss As a Narrative Detail in the Short Stories “To Reach Japan” by Alice Munro and Anton P. Chekhov’s “The Kiss”

Juan Ignacio Torres Montesinos — 2024-12-31

This analysis proposes a contrastive approach between two short stories, The Kiss by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and To Reach Japan, written by Alice Munro. The word Chekhovian is remarked to refer to Chekhov’s short-story narrative and, according to such allusions, to establish a textual dialogue with Canadian writer Alice Munro. The analysisis based upon the relevance of the detail in both short-story narratives. The detail is an intensively brief element in the text that refers to daily life and determines the evolution of story characters. It is tied to daily-life events and both writers’ narrations imply the surge of an exceptional daily-life. In these stories by Munro and Chekhov, the detail is represented by a kiss. From the instant of the kiss onwards, its remembrance chronogically structures both texts. It conditions the characters’ identities and perceptions of others’ emotions. The detail of the kiss is to be narrated though it is an indicative of the lack of significant words. The kiss instants are located in places alien to daily residence so intimacies in movement are conformed in the characters of both stories. In consequence, the narrative detail is the criterion to analyze those arguments and to establish links between short-story narratives of Anton Chekhov and Alice Munro.

El método de la “caja negra” en la construcción del personaje: Chéjov y “Los años de peregrinación del chico sin color” de Haruki Murakami

Natalia Arsentieva — 2024-12-31

The article examines the connections and transitions between the narrative innovations of Anton Chekhov and Haruki Murakami within the genre of the psychological novel. Both authors employ symbols, dreams, and irrational mental states, alongside direct psychological analysis, to explore emotional struggles and psychic anomalies during critical moments in life of an ordinary person. In defining a new category of the “road”, both authors establish inner development aimed at self-knowledge as its foundation. Themes such as Eros, personal responsibility, and the nature of the soul are central, with the concept of the “black box” of the subconscious emerging as a shared focal point in their work. However, Chekhov adheres to a realist psychoanalytic approach that remains grounded in the boundaries of reality, whereas Murakami introduces a mystical perspective to examine liminal states of consciousness. The psychological narratives of both authors are analyzed in the context of their external plots, emphasizing the frequent use of open endings as a defining feature of their storytelling. The depiction of the landscape highlights the shared philosophical worldview of both authors.

Special Issue "Man Needs the Whole Globe: Chekhov Expanded"

Natalia Arsentieva — 2024-12-31

This issue of the journal commemorates the 120th Anniversary of the death of Anton P. Chekhov, a prominent Russian writer and playwright of the late nineteenth century, whose work left an indelible mark on the world literature. Born on January 17, 1860 in Taganrog and died on July 2, 1904 in Badenweiler, Chekhov was a tireless traveler: he toured Europe, visited the island of Sakhalin, and lived in the Crimea. However, the epicenter of his literary activity was located in Melikhovo, an estate near Moscow, where he wrote many of his narratives and theatrical works.

Polakiewicz, Leonard A. (2024). Interpreting Chekhov’s Prose. Academic Studies Press.

Andrey Stepanov — 2024-12-31

Reseña del libro: Leonard A. Polakiewicz. Interpreting Chekhov’s Prose. Academic Studies Press, 2024. 432 Pages.

Schlögel, Karl (2021). El siglo soviético. Barcelona: Galaxia-Gutenberg.

Juan Ignacio Torres Montesinos — 2024-12-31

Мъката на творенията на света: Кирил Василев, „Шествието“. (2021). Издателство за поезия ДА.

Marco Vidal González — 2024-12-31

Не лъжи! Марко Видал, „Едно мъжко момиче“ (2022). Изд. Фондация „Емили“.

Kiril Vassilev — 2024-12-31

Ulítskaya, L. (2022). Sóniechka (Trad. Marta Rebón). Barcelona: Anagrama.

Tomás Bombachi — 2024-12-31

Sóniechka[1] (en ruso, Сонечка) es la primera experiencia novelística de Liudmila Yevguéniyevna Ulítskaya (en ruso, Людми́ла Евге́ньевна Ули́цкая), publicada en 1992 en la revista literaria Novy Miry y galardonada con el Premio Médicis de Francia cuatro años después. Escritora de novelas (El enigma de Kukotsky, La carpa verde), antologías de cuentos (Gentes de nuestro Zar, Basura sagrada), guiones teatrales (Confitura rusa), nació en 1943 en los Urales, aunque creció y se educó en Moscú e Israel. Estudió en la Universidad Lomonósov, obtuvo el título de Bióloga y trabajó en el Instituto de Genética General de la Academia de Ciencia de la URSS, de donde fue despedida al constatarse que su máquina de escribir había reproducido literatura censurada por el régimen soviético.

Editada por primera vez al español en 2007 y traducida directo del ruso en 2022, Sóniechka es una novela corta, sin separaciones en capítulos y estructurada por intervalos espacio-temporales, donde se retrata el devenir adulto de Sonia[2] Iósifovna, una muchachita presentada como frágil, a quien la autora nos la presenta en una relación intensa con la literatura, en la cambiante Bielorrusia de los años treinta. Entre libros rusos y extranjeros, sus tesoros existenciales, ella sobrevive gracias a la lectura, su refugio frente a lo riguroso de una vida enmarcada en la violencia de la guerra y la miseria que acarrea la época.

[1] El sufijo “ечк” en ruso se usa como diminutivo.

[2] Sonia es diminutivo de Sofía

Garzaniti, Marcello (2023). Storia delle letterature slave. Libri, scrittori e idee dall’Adriatico allá Siberia (secoli IX-XXI). Roma: Carocci editore.

Enrique Santos Marinas — 2024-12-31

Review of the book Garzaniti, Marcello (2023). Storia delle letterature slave. Libri, scrittori e idee dall’Adriatico allá Siberia (secoli IX-XXI). Roma: Carocci editore, 552 pp.