Mining for Jewels

Evgenii Zamiatin's reputation rests on the pivotal role he played in the development of Russian modernism. Hitherto, however, critical engagement with the experimental nature of his fiction has been largely confined to his middle period: the satirical stories set in Great Britain, the dystopian nove...

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主要作者: Cavendish, Philip
格式: Online
语言:英语
出版: Modern Humanities Research Association 2025
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author Cavendish, Philip
author_browse Cavendish, Philip
author_facet Cavendish, Philip
author_sort Cavendish, Philip
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Evgenii Zamiatin's reputation rests on the pivotal role he played in the development of Russian modernism. Hitherto, however, critical engagement with the experimental nature of his fiction has been largely confined to his middle period: the satirical stories set in Great Britain, the dystopian novel My, and related works. As a writer who came to prominence at the time of the October Revolution, Zamiatin is best known as an early and vocal critic of the new culture of conformism, and as the author in the 1920s of various artistic manifestoes in which he engaged with the problem of literature's future in relation to the Revolution, and sought to articulate his own brand of synthetic modernism. This study presents a different and complementary view of Zamiatin as a writer whose fiction, whilst certainly modernist, conformed to what Eikhenbaum termed 'literary Populism'. Zamiatin's intimate knowledge of the Russian provinces and the world of folk-religious culture are key elements in the skaz-style conceit which underpins his early fiction.This study stresses Zamiatin's enormous debt to such writers as Leskov and Remizov, and locates his work within a rich tradition of ethnographic belles-lettres and oral-based fiction. The texts analysed exploit materials from the folk-religious imagination in an attempt to refresh and 'democratize' the literary language through the use of the peasant vernacular. Zamiatin sought immediacy and dynamism in his provincial prose, and his works in this mould are best appreciated through the prism of twentieth-century neoprimitivism and expressionism. Their lubok-style simplicity, however, conceals a complex attitude towards the folk-religious world at their core. The poetic and celebratory is balanced by the sceptical and ironic, and the resulting tension characterizes these texts as essentially modernistic.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1670872025-10-16T12:24:58Z Mining for Jewels Cavendish, Philip Russia modernism Russian modernism literary populism thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSK Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1D Europe::1DT Eastern Europe::1DTA Russia thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999 Evgenii Zamiatin's reputation rests on the pivotal role he played in the development of Russian modernism. Hitherto, however, critical engagement with the experimental nature of his fiction has been largely confined to his middle period: the satirical stories set in Great Britain, the dystopian novel My, and related works. As a writer who came to prominence at the time of the October Revolution, Zamiatin is best known as an early and vocal critic of the new culture of conformism, and as the author in the 1920s of various artistic manifestoes in which he engaged with the problem of literature's future in relation to the Revolution, and sought to articulate his own brand of synthetic modernism. This study presents a different and complementary view of Zamiatin as a writer whose fiction, whilst certainly modernist, conformed to what Eikhenbaum termed 'literary Populism'. Zamiatin's intimate knowledge of the Russian provinces and the world of folk-religious culture are key elements in the skaz-style conceit which underpins his early fiction.This study stresses Zamiatin's enormous debt to such writers as Leskov and Remizov, and locates his work within a rich tradition of ethnographic belles-lettres and oral-based fiction. The texts analysed exploit materials from the folk-religious imagination in an attempt to refresh and 'democratize' the literary language through the use of the peasant vernacular. Zamiatin sought immediacy and dynamism in his provincial prose, and his works in this mould are best appreciated through the prism of twentieth-century neoprimitivism and expressionism. Their lubok-style simplicity, however, conceals a complex attitude towards the folk-religious world at their core. The poetic and celebratory is balanced by the sceptical and ironic, and the resulting tension characterizes these texts as essentially modernistic. 2025-10-16T12:24:56Z 2025-10-16T12:24:56Z 2025-10-14T13:53:06Z 2000 book ONIX_20251014T154955_9781839546891_12 0957-0322 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/106497 9781839546891 1902653270 https://admin.directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/167087 eng MHRA Texts and Dissertations open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/106497/1/9781839546891.pdf Modern Humanities Research Association Texts and Translations 10.59860/td.b6a7eba 10.59860/td.b6a7eba 263272ae-2045-451b-ac91-b0037a2fd63a 9781839546891 1902653270 Texts and Translations 299 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle Russia
modernism
Russian modernism
literary populism
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSK Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1D Europe::1DT Eastern Europe::1DTA Russia
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
Cavendish, Philip
Mining for Jewels
title Mining for Jewels
title_full Mining for Jewels
title_fullStr Mining for Jewels
title_full_unstemmed Mining for Jewels
title_short Mining for Jewels
title_sort mining for jewels
topic Russia
modernism
Russian modernism
literary populism
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSK Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1D Europe::1DT Eastern Europe::1DTA Russia
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
topic_facet Russia
modernism
Russian modernism
literary populism
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSK Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1D Europe::1DT Eastern Europe::1DTA Russia
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
url ONIX_20251014T154955_9781839546891_12
work_keys_str_mv AT cavendishphilip miningforjewels