V
A
C
V
A
C

Pavel Arsenyev.
Literary Positivism. Season One: 1836–1851. Issue One: Belinsky and Free Translation

The first installment in an essayistic series, dedicated to Vissarion Belinsky.

V–A–C Press’s Literary Positivism project explores a time when literature could no longer ignore science if it wished to remain “unconditionally modern.” Contrary to the common practice of publishing essay collections based on lectures or as standalone pieces in periodicals, the genre of this publication might be described as “serialised essays,” or simply as a series. This mimicry of the material and technical history of nineteenth-century literature—much of which relied on the feuilleton or annual critical reviews—offers a more “user-friendly interface” than a single volume lying heavily on a reader’s desk.

All photos: Ruslan Shavaleev

Pavel Arsenyev (b. 1986) is a poet and literary theorist and the recipient of the Andrei Bely Prize (2012).

In constructing his own “third path” between Classicism and Romanticism, and drawing in many respects on Hegel, Belinsky struggles to arrive at a positive definition of the new art—one that reconciles “the richness of its Romantic content with the plasticity of Classical form.” What Belinsky calls an “age of reconciliation,” however, gives rise to one of the most militant forms of literary writing, later known as “critical realism.” Reconciliation thus turns into a radical break with the preceding tradition and the establishment of a new one.

— Pavel Arsenyev, “Reconciliation with Good-Natured Idealism…”

The dawn of literary positivism, the theme of the first season, is explored across four chapters, which, like issues of Otechestvennye Zapiski, will be published as separate “booklets.”

The first of these booklets considers the philosophical influences on the thought of Vissarion Belinsky, the founder of the Natural School and a key figure in literary and social criticism. A particularly important factor in Belinsky’s intellectual development was the fact that this leading nineteenth-century Russian critic did not know the languages of Hegel and Schelling, and therefore relied on free translations and informal retellings of the works of German thinkers.

Scientific Editors
Irina Adelheim
Timofey Alekseenko

Editor
Vyacheslav Nemirov

Proofreader
Tamara Shatula

Design and Layout
Ekaterina Lupanova

Photo Editor
Anastasia Indrikova

/