Vol 6, No 1 (2024)

In this article the old question in Bakhtin studies: “Where did Bakhtin come from?” is analyzed against the systematic-historical background. The question is being approached with the concept of the “paradigm shift”, this time not on the sphere of natural sciences (as in T. Kuhn’s book about scientific revolution), but in the sphere of philosophy and the human studies, i. e. epistemology in the humanities. The new European revolution in the fields of historical experience, during the First World War and after it (the so- called “one hundred’s decade”), seems to have been the historical “chronotope” of M. Bakhtin’s own specific turn in philosophy, primarily in ontology; this is the context, I believe, the Russian thinker actually “came from” as a philosopher. In this sense, Bakhtin might be seen and thought as “the only one among the many”, as Sergey Averintsev once called him. From this point of view, the young Bakhtin’s project of the paradigm shift in prima philosophia, his text Toward a Philosophy of the Act (1921/22) is looked upon as a specifically individual and nationally unique variation of what M. Theunissen much later called, in his monumental book Der Andere, “social ontology” as the modern (existential) form of the first philosophy. In this sense, Bakhtin, as well as his Western contemporaries put to question the “fatal theoreticism” of the philosophy of the New Times, taking what he called participative thinking as an opposition not to theory, but to “theoroticism”.

The article examines the theoretical discourse of physicality as the quintessence of philosophical, spiritual, intellectual quests, teachings, and concepts. It is shown how each scientific tradition (philosophical, anthropological, psychological, sociological, cultural, artistic), studying the phenomenon of corporeality from different angles, reinterpreted, supplemented or denied the previous one. In this context corporality appears as a source of meaning, as a sign system, and also as a field for experiment in art.

The study examines the influence of the classics of European literature (W. Shakespeare, J.G. Byron, E.T.A. Hoffmann) on the work of A.S. Pushkin. It is shown that the Russian classic does not simply borrows motifs and images of world literature, but “embeds” them into the Russian cultural context, enriches them with national coloring and characteristic features of domestic culture. A.S. Pushkin establishes a dialogue between Russian and European literature, turns the “foreign” word into his own one, makes Russian literature a part of the world cultural heritage.

The publication represents the final part of M.M. Bakhtin’s lectures read at the Mordovia State Pedagogical Institute (now N.P. Ogarev Mordovia State University) in the second semester of the 1936/37 academic year and recorded by a Moksha-Mordovian writer, one of the founders of professional Mordovian literature, at that time a student of the literary faculty M.A. Beban (Byabin). The fragment examines the history of English and French literature of the 17th century. It briefly analyzes the work of English authors J. Milton, J. Bunyan, considers the theoretical foundations of French classicism (the aesthetics of N. Boileau, the philosophy of R. Descartes), characterizes the work of French writers – representatives of classicism (F. de Malherbe, P. Corneille, J. Racine, Molière).

The review article presents an analysis of materials devoted to the personality and scientific heritage of M.M. Bakhtin published in the «Literaturovedcheskij zhurnal». As the authors point out, from 2021 to 2024, the journal has become one of the most important platforms for discussing topical issues of contemporary Bakhtin studies (various aspects of the thinker’s scientific biography, his key ideas, the nature of their reception, etc.). It is noted that among the authors of the journal are major representatives of Russian and foreign Bakhtin studies (V.L. Makhlin, N.I. Nikolaev, V.I. Tyupa, K. Emerson, K. Brandist). Special attention is paid to I.V. Peshkov’s cycle of publications devoted to the “Bakhtin question”, i.e. the authorship of books and articles published in the second half of the 1920s under the names of V.N. Voloshinov, I.I. Kanaev, P.N. Medvedev.