Basil Lvoff | Hunter College, CUNY (original) (raw)

Academic Publications in English by Basil Lvoff

Linguistic Frontiers, 2023

This article argues that Viktor Shklovsky and his allies’ theory cannot be duly appreciated and u... more This article argues that Viktor Shklovsky and his allies’ theory cannot be duly appreciated and understood without accounting for their engagement in journalism. The latter was both practiced and theorized by Shklovsky’s group of the Russian Formalists, which stood out as a then rare combination of rigorous theory and extreme performativity. Accordingly, there was disagreement among the Formalists of Shklovsky’s group.
On one hand, they did not want the kind of criticism that is published in periodicals and holds sway over contemporary writers to be naïve banter—the Formalists would rather criticism recognize the literariness of literature
and hew to the patterns and laws they discovered. On the other hand, the Formalists applied these literary patterns to their own writing, creative or not, which is why Shklovsky wrote that he was both a fish zoologist
and a fish. Hence the Formalists’ desire to make their scholarship and criticism performative. The conflict between rigor and performativity could be resolved only in a periodical, and while the Formalists, as this article
explains, had a problem with issuing one fully of their own, Shklovsky’s literary magazine Petersburg was a short-lived exception. This magazine is as little studied as it is largely important—for both the history and theory
of Russian Formalism, as well as journalism per se, which in 1920s Russia was recognized as a new modus vivendi of literature in the Formalists’ theory of factography (literatura fakta). The leading genre of factography
was the feuilleton, and it is from this genre’s standpoint that the article analyzes Shklovsky’s Petersburg, and, in the second part, compares it with another literary magazine—the famous The Library for Reading, run by
Osip Senkovsky, one of the prominent feuilletonists of the nineteenth century. The comparison of Shklovsky with Senkovsky as editors of these magazines makes it possible to appreciate both not as vivid exceptions
but the very rule—a particular canon with its unique approach to culture that became relevant with the advent of fragmentation in our civilization and remains so to this day.

Russian Literature, 2021

This article argues that both the Russian Formalists and Digital Humanists infer meaning from pat... more This article argues that both the Russian Formalists and Digital Humanists infer meaning from patterns of development in literature. Key to this comparison is the figure of Boris Iarkho, whose statistics-and biology-driven methodology based on large corpora of texts anticipated Digital Humanities by more than a half century. One of the main tasks of the article is to contextualize Iarkho's work. By comparing Iarkho with Franco Moretti, Matthew Jockers, and other Digital Humanists, I hope to demonstrate the relevance of Russian Formalism and Digital Humanities to one another. The former offers theoretical and methodological depth, the latter the opportunity to carry on with the projects launched by Iarkho and other Russian Formalists. At the same time, the comparison with Digital Humanities reveals some fundamental discrepancies within Russian Formalism, namely, between Iarkho and the group of Viktor Shklovskii. I show that they were diametrically opposed to each other in their understanding of literary evolution and form. I argue that these divergences, distinguishable in Russian Formalism thanks to Digital Humanities, can enrich our dialogue about the value, status, and meaning of literature.

New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 2018

This is the first article that undertakes a coherent comparison of the ideas of Viktor Shklovsky ... more This is the first article that undertakes a coherent comparison of the ideas of Viktor Shklovsky and Marshall McLuhan.

In the nineteenth century, God died, and the burden of agency shifted onto man—or so it seemed. Soon, man’s creation—the machine—forsook its maker just as man forsook his. Liberation from God did not give man his own agency and a clear vision of his identity. Agency shifted not onto but past man—to the machine. Poets and philosophers, from Maximilian Voloshin to Horkheimer and Adorno, soon realized it. Meanwhile, there were two thinkers among them all, separated by time and geography yet with the same bent for paradox and the ability to see the ground where others see the figure, who argued with great convincingness that the things man uses have always determined him and his meaning. These thinkers were Viktor Shklovsky, one of the founders of Russian Formalism, and Marshall McLuhan, one of the fathers of modern media studies.

Writing about the new media of his time (e.g., television), McLuhan argued that they function by the same laws as any other medium (=the extensions of man), even the railway, which “creat[ed] totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure” (Understanding Media 20).

Likewise, Shklovsky wrote that “[m]an is changed by his craft”; that “[t]he tool” (in the general sense) “not only extends man’s arm but is extended in him itself”; that the writer discovers the world and his own self through his craft similarly to “the blind man” who “locates the sense of touch on the end of his stick,” and that, even though “[a]n ape on a branch is more sincere,” “the branch also affects [its] psychology” (Proza 646).

This article analyzes the fundamental stakes underlying the formalism of Shlovsky and McLuhan.

International Studies in Humour, 2017

Humor and things related (such as the category of the merry [veselost’]), played an unusually pro... more Humor and things related (such as the category of the merry [veselost’]), played an unusually prominent role in what is often considered the first school of contemporary literary theory, Russian Formalism, or, to be specific, its Petrograd wing, mainly represented by Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, and Boris Eikhenbaum. Humor helped these Formalists in their battle against approaching literature from the standpoint of “psychologism”. The comic let them emphasize literature’s own agenda (centered round the interplay of its constructive elements, not only within a single work but also across history), at the cost of the “serious” authorial purpose, previously identified with the meaning of the work. In fact, an artistic breakthrough, the Formalists maintained, tends to be (taken as) humorous at the beginning, its “serious” explanations being a later development;
accordingly, the Formalists considered as the prototype of all novels the parodic works of Cervantes
and Sterne. Humor advanced Formalist theory, helping it take its eyes off the tenor of the work and see
the vehicle, off content and see the medium, which now was considered the true message. However,
when it came to their special theory of the comic, this approach threatened to deconstruct the literary
significance of humor in literature, humorous works no longer distinguishable from non-humorous
ones. Why this was so is analyzed in the forthcoming second part of this article, titled “Literature as a
Joke”.

International Studies in Humour, 2018

The first part of this article demonstrated the utmost importance of humor, gaiety, and interplay... more The first part of this article demonstrated the utmost importance of humor, gaiety, and interplay to such leading Russian Formalists as Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, and Boris Eikhenbaum. The humorous largely determined the way the Formalists discussed literature as such. And yet, when they turned to the problem of humor proper, they largely explained humor away. Shklovsky's "Towards a Theory of the Comic" analyzed humor "geometrically," showing that the structure of funny stories [anekdoty] does not guarantee humor-for example, when the same constructions are found in "serious" works. Shklovsky's statement that being a tragedy is not the most important thing about King Lear bespoke the same approach that manifested itself in his theory of humor. Humor was reduced in it to a mere construction, and while literature was merry to the Formalists (as it has been shown in the first part of the article), humor as such was for them nothing more than a particular example of the literary, without the comic, or some other psychological, aspect considered its prerequisite. However unsatisfactory this may be, such an understanding is legitimate, being rooted in the history of the term "humor." Nevertheless, this must not beg the question: if we take humor in the colloquially-dominant sense of the word that implies psychology (the multiplicity of our interpretations thereof notwithstanding), can we say that the Formalists did justice to this phenomenon? Humor advanced their literary theory, but did they advance the theory of humor? Whether they did or not is for the reader to decide, whereas the argument made of this article is that, having exposed the construction of humor, the Formalists deconstructed this phenomenon, which appears to be a vivid example not of a theory of humor but rather of a humorous theory.

Viktor Shklovsky's Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy, 2019

"In chapter 2 Basil Lvoff argues that Viktor Shklovsky’s legacy has weathered a parade of scholar... more "In chapter 2 Basil Lvoff argues that Viktor Shklovsky’s legacy has
weathered a parade of scholarly movements—from Structuralism and Deconstruction to modern-day New Materialism and Digital Humanities—and it remained relevant to each of them together with its perennial principle of defamiliarization. The author believes that although Shklovsky’s career spanned more than seventy years, yet literary critics tend to underestimate Shklovsky’s fifty-year-long odyssey after his public, albeit forced and ostensible, recantation of Formalism. Therefore, the period from 1930 to 1984 is in the limelight of this chapter, which aims to outline the arc of Shklovsky’s post-Formalist evolution. At the same time, the chapter will compare Shklovsky’s major works after 1930 with his earlier ones that share similar theoretical or generic features. For example, the densely theoretical Theory of Prose (1925/1929) will be juxtaposed with Bowstring: On the Dissimilarity of the Similar (1970); the epistolary novel Zoo, or Letters Not about Love (1923) will be compared to its 1966 edition and Letters to a Grandson (published in
2002); some parallels are also drawn between Shklovsky’s 1929 and 1963 books on Leo Tolstoy."

At first, the Russian Formalists overlapped with Frankfurt School theoreticians, such as Horkheim... more At first, the Russian Formalists overlapped with Frankfurt School theoreticians, such as Horkheimer and Adorno, in criticizing the mechanization of life, clichéd art being one of its manifestations. Soon, however, the Formalists got interested in mass literature instead of rejecting it point blank. Rather than accuse it of all mortal sins, they recognized the necessary role it played in literary evolution. This made the Opoyaz Formalists (Shklovsky, Tynianov, and Eikhenbaum) one of the first scholars of the literary market, and the fact their theory thereof was not a Marxian one makes it doubly original. Furthermore, the Formalists remained faithful to their principle of studying something not only in abstraction but also in practice, as writers, which is the case with a novel Shklovsky co-authored, the devices of adventure fiction emulated and parodied in it. This shows that Formalists did take an interest in the sociology of literature despite their critics’ mistaken claims otherwise. However, Formalism still tried to approach sociological problems from the standpoint of literary theory proper, without conceding the autonomy of literature as a self-sufficient system. I rely on the Formalists’ texts to show how the idea of literature’s systemic independence can be elaborated and preserved when the largely sociological problem of the literary market is addressed.

Academic Publications in Russian by Basil Lvoff

Новый мир, 2023

Что есть человек? Всего лишь точка в пространстве и времени или же нечто большее? Что человек в с... more Что есть человек? Всего лишь точка в пространстве и времени или же нечто большее? Что человек в себя вмещает и как он воспринимает мир? Как могут повести себя орудия, созданные человеком? Как можно определить Бога? И каковы связи Бога с человеком? Возможен ли Бог будущего, основанного на техническом прогрессе? Как изменится человек и его «я», когда пресловутый искусственный интеллект станет способен на самостоятельные решения? Автор статьи делает попытку найти ответы на эти непростые и противоречивые вопросы, опираясь на сферы искусства, литературы, науки, философии и опыт их классических представителей в мировой культуре.

Новое литературное обозрение, 2019

Вопросы литературы, 2016

___Russian___ В статье прослеживается эволюция Б. Эйхенбаума от ранних статей к формалистским. Ут... more ___Russian___ В статье прослеживается эволюция Б. Эйхенбаума от ранних статей к формалистским. Утверждается: гуманизм раннего Эйхенбаума привлекает исследователей, недовольных невниманием формалистов к личности в искусстве, однако, несмотря на самостоятельность пути Эйхенбаума, его превращение в формалиста было закономерным.
___English___ Scholars not content with Russian Formalism’s seeming lack of attention to the individual’s role in art and its evolution prefer Boris Eichenbaum to his counter-parts, Viktor Shklovsky and Yury Tynianov. Indeed, Eikhenbaum the scholar wrote more willingly on the matter. Those who appreciate Eikhenbaum for his ‘humaneness’ are likely to embrace his early, pre-formalist work, in which he fiercely criticized Shklovsky and his Futurist friends and displayed non-formalist tendencies. However, his early articles also reveal multiple overlaps with the Formalist doctrine (e. g., upholding literature’s autonomy and understanding history as ‘double vision’). The question arises: did Eikhenbaum yield to the Formalists’ influence by sacrificing his ‘humaneness’, as when he reconsidered his interpretation of Tolstoy’s diaries? The article argues that, despite his transformation, Eikhenbaum remained essentially faithful to his earlier theories. Mutual influence of Eikhenbaum and the other Formalists took place, but it was not an influence ‘on’ but an influence ‘in’ (as the cognate inflow suggests)–not forceful but organic, in keeping with Eikhenbaum’s own evolution.

This article surveys the history of Russian Formalism as a school, primarily its Petrograd branch... more This article surveys the history of Russian Formalism as a school, primarily its Petrograd branch: Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, and Boris Eikhenbaum. The idea central to the article is that Formalism cannot be understood without the value of gaiety (as in Nietzsche's "Gay Science”); this value permeated the Formalists' ideas and affected their scholarly style.

Автор анализирует малоизученный журнал В.Б. Шкловского «Петербург» с точки зрения формалистской т... more Автор анализирует малоизученный журнал
В.Б. Шкловского «Петербург» с точки зрения
формалистской теории журнальной формы, выясняет место, которое это издание
занимает в истории русской журналистики.
Ключевые слова: В.Б. Шкловский, журнал «Петербург»,
формализм, фельетон, литературная критика.
Меди@льманах. - 2014. - № 5. - С. 74-83.

В статье анализируется влияние «журнальной науки» А. Белого на русских формалистов. Акцентируетс... more В статье анализируется влияние «журнальной науки»
А. Белого на русских формалистов. Акцентируется
роль литературной критики в научной эволюции
формалистов, прежде всего Б. Эйхенбаума.
Ключевые слова: формализм, А. Белый, Б. Эйхенбаум,
литературная критика, литературоведение.

The article discusses the theory of literary evolution and canon formation according to the Russi... more The article discusses the theory of literary evolution and canon formation according to the Russian Formalists and Harold Bloom. Its author maintains that the American theorist has much in common with the Russian scholars. They both share the idea of mistake as the drive of literary evolution and the notion of literary canon pertaining to strangeness. However, for the Formalists strangeness withstands canonization, while for Bloom it is the cause of it. The difference is that for Bloom strangeness is sublime while for the Formalists something referred to as sublime is canonized and therefore devoid of strangeness. The article attempts to explain this and other discrepancies in terms of the Russian Formalists’ and Bloom’s own literary evolution.

Статья рассматривает теорию литературной эволюции и формирования канона с точки зрения русских формалистов и Хэролда Блума. В ней утверждается, что у американского теоретика много общего с российскими. И он, и они разделяют представление об ошибке как двигателе литературной эволюции и идею литературного канона в его связи со странностью. Однако для формалистов странность противостоит канонизации, в то время как для Блума она является причиной последней. Различие в том, что для Блума странность есть прекрасное, возвышенное, тогда как для формалистов то, что называют прекрасным, канонизировано и, таким образом, утратило странность. Эта статья предпринимает попытку объяснить это и другие различия языком блумовской и опоязовской теорий.

This article introduces the term automated estrangement, which the author thinks useful rather in... more This article introduces the term automated estrangement, which the author thinks useful rather in literary criticism than scholarship. The term automated estrangement should help to identify those cases when the writer seems to be estranging his material but, in fact, employs estranging artistic techniques mechanically, as a template: nominally there is defamiliarization, but it is deprived of efficacy, and the defamiliarizing effect is not attained.

Статья вводит термин «автоматизованное остранение», который автор считает полезным скорее в критике, нежели в литературоведении. Термин «автоматизованное остранение» призван установить те случаи, когда писатель лишь на первый взгляд остраняет свой материал, а на деле использует остраняющие приемы механически, в качестве штампа: формально остранение здесь присутствует, но оно лишено своего запала, и эффект остранения отсутствует.

Published in: Журналистика и культура русской речи. – 2013. – № 1. – С. 58–65.

The article analyzes the device of ostranenie (estrangement, defamiliarization) in art that was s... more The article analyzes the device of ostranenie (estrangement, defamiliarization) in art that was so important for Russian Formalism. Since the very beginning and up till now, ostranenie has caused numerous debates among literary theorists. Some rejected it entirely; others interpreted in too broadly and washed up the notion. The author of this article tries to defend ostranenie from both extremes and provides his own definition.

Статья посвящена приему остранения в искусстве, столь важному для русских формалистов. С самого начала и до сегодняшнего дня остранение вызывало споры среди теоретиков литературы. Одни отвергали его вовсе, другие толковали настолько широко, что понятие размывалось. Автор статьи пытается защитить остранение от двух крайностей и дает ему свое определение.

Рассматривается на примере полемик парадоксальная позиция Эйхенбаума: ратование за плюрализм в на... more Рассматривается на примере полемик парадоксальная позиция Эйхенбаума: ратование за плюрализм в науке в целом при отказе каждому из существующих в праве сочетаться с другими - это Эйхенбаум критикует как проявление Эклектики. Текст представляет собой тезисы для научной конференции студентов, аспирантов и молодых ученых "Ломоносов-2013".

http://lomonosov-msu.ru/archive/Lomonosov_2013/structure_10_2145.htm

Dissertations by Basil Lvoff

2020

THE PROBLEM OF LITERARY DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIAN FORMALISM AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES by VASILY LVOV ... more THE PROBLEM OF LITERARY DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIAN FORMALISM AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES

VASILY LVOV (BASIL LVOFF)

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York

2020

Chair of Examining Committee: Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour

Supervisory Committee:
Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour
Martin Elsky
Lev Manovich
Ilya Kliger

Диссертация посвящена литературной критике Юрия Николаевича Тынянова (1894 – 1943), Виктора Борис... more Диссертация посвящена литературной критике Юрия Николаевича Тынянова (1894 – 1943), Виктора Борисовича Шкловского (1893 – 1984) и Бориса Михайловича Эйхенбаума (1886 – 1959) – трех знаменитых представителей формальной школы русского литературоведения, участников ОПОЯЗа (Общества изучения теории поэтического языка). В диссертации рассматриваются их собственно критические статьи, а также статьи метакритические – критика о критике. Эти статьи рассматриваются в контексте литературного процесса своего времени и в отношении к научной поэтике формалистов. В дополнение к самим текстам анализируются поведенческие установки формалистов-критиков. Проанализированы также те периодические издания, к выпуску или редакционной политике которых формалисты были причастны. В диссертации говорится о новаторском подходе формалистов к литературной критике – на практике и в теории – и о том вкладе, который они внесли в теорию журналистики.

Linguistic Frontiers, 2023

Russian Literature, 2021

New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 2018

This article analyzes the fundamental stakes underlying the formalism of Shlovsky and McLuhan.

International Studies in Humour, 2017

International Studies in Humour, 2018

Viktor Shklovsky's Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy, 2019

Новый мир, 2023

Новое литературное обозрение, 2019

Вопросы литературы, 2016

Published in: Журналистика и культура русской речи. – 2013. – № 1. – С. 58–65.

http://lomonosov-msu.ru/archive/Lomonosov_2013/structure_10_2145.htm

2020

THE PROBLEM OF LITERARY DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIAN FORMALISM AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES by VASILY LVOV ... more THE PROBLEM OF LITERARY DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIAN FORMALISM AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES

VASILY LVOV (BASIL LVOFF)

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York

2020

Chair of Examining Committee: Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour

Supervisory Committee:
Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour
Martin Elsky
Lev Manovich
Ilya Kliger

Доклад на конференции "Теории и практики современного искусства", РГГУ, 2020 г.

ASEEES, 2020

Russian Formalism was indeed, as Shklovsky wrote, “the first Russian theory to embrace…. the worl... more Russian Formalism was indeed, as Shklovsky wrote, “the first Russian theory to embrace…. the world.” Shklovsky ushered it in by turning to foreign literature, particularly Sterne, whom he resurrected for a great many readers. And yet Shklovsky was chronically monolingual. In the letters to his grandson, he repeats, “Learn languages”—tirelessly so. This said, Shklovsky was more oriented to Weltliteratur than Eikhenbaum and Tynianov, both fluent in foreign languages. After many hesitations between the Romance-Germanic and Russian-Slavic departments of Saint Petersburg University, Eikhenbaum opted for the latter. As for Tynianov, he never finished his Comparatist monographs, including “Tyutchev and Heine.” His words from it are revealing: “The genesis of a literary phenomenon lies in the random sphere of transitions from language to language, from literature to literature, whereas the sphere of tradition is governed by laws and is enclosed within the circle of national literature.” Thus, genesis as a heap of random facts is contrasted with orderly system. Therein also consisted the Formalists’ overcoming of the positivists’ studious fact-gleaning, the radical simplification of the phenomena they studied, through bracketing off the “noise” (as Claude Shannon would say) of cultural context. Accordingly, Shklovsky’s Weltliteratur was “globalist,” rather than “post-colonial.” This also raises the question of Shklovsky and Jakobson’s conflict: Shklovsky’s opposition to the primacy of language in literary scholarship, on one hand, and Jakobson’s Eurasianism, with its repudiation of such globalism and yet with its idea of iazykovoi soiuz, on the other. The talk concludes with the question: how does all of this translate for our field today? Are these theoretical conflicts as relevant a century later?

ASEEES, 2019

My talk is devoted to the problem of literary and linguistic evolution in Roman Jakobson’s theory... more My talk is devoted to the problem of literary and linguistic evolution in Roman Jakobson’s theory.

I start by putting his musings on the matter into context—that of comparative linguistics and literature, their primary and central question being, why and how does a language or literature change? The fact that a language or literature has different ages and ramifies with time, as Latin did into the Romance languages, made organic life an especially alluring analogy to some—and homology to others.

The difference between analogy and homology is key to understanding Jakobson’s take on literary development. Analogy betters our understanding of the patterns of language or literature but does not explain them. Homology, by contrast, is itself an explanation should we agree that language and literature abide by biological patterns (e.g. Darwin’s law of divergence).

The Russian Formalists, these founding fathers of contemporary literary scholarship, Jakobson among them, were no exception, “biologized” by the concept of evolution. In Shklovsky, for example, we will find multiple metaphors related to nature. Some of today’s scholars immediately “buy” them as homologies while others outright disregard them as analogies, in both cases prompted by the desire to stress Jakobson and his fellow Formalists’ proximity to, or aloofness from, biology-oriented Digital Humanists such as Franco Moretti or the so-called Adaptationists.

Meanwhile, instead of one Russian Formalism, I maintain, there were many, particularly distinguished by their interpretation of literature vis-à-vis nature; to prove it, I juxtapose Roman Jakobson, the Opoyaz Formalists (Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Shklovsky, and Boris Eikhenbaum), and Boris Yarkho. Only the latter did apply biological laws to literature, in an impeccably apodictic way. Conversely, early Jakobson and his allies from the Opoyaz resorted to nature not so willingly, and when they did, rather as an analogy, which, I hold, goes back to Alexander Veselovsky’s Historical Poetics, with its criticism of Ferdinand Brunetière and some other proponents of biologizing literary scholarship.

And yet Jakobson’s interest, later in his life, towards structural similarities between language and DNA complicates the matter. Was it mere curiosity or an example of methodological oscillations?

ASEEES, 2019

Between myopic empiricism and baseless speculation unfolds the essay. Thus, Robert Musil, a great... more Between myopic empiricism and baseless speculation unfolds the essay. Thus, Robert Musil, a great philosopher of the essay, discussed it as a tension between “precision” and “soul.” His contemporary Viktor Shklovsky, a fellow Modernist and trailblazing essayist, displayed both tendencies in scholarly and creative work. He referred to the soul with precision, discussing its pitch [stroi] (in his essay on Rozanov). Shklovsky also wrote about literary evolution while transgressing the boundaries of the precise and demonstrable in such rarely corroborated statements as “art develops by the logic [razum] of its technique.” One may also find these two trends in the essays of Shklovsky’s fellow Formalists of the Opoyaz group—Boris Eikhenbaum and Yuri Tynianov. The latter boasted in a letter to Shklovsky: “We dispensed with the Geist of the Germans.” (The Formalists saw Geist as an elusive and impressionistic category, dangerous to empiricism.) Yet it is Tynianov’s famed essay, “The Interval” [Promezhutok], that foregrounded (intellectual) intuition, subjectivism, the going beyond the palpable (the very definition of meta-physics), or philosophical faith, as one may call it. We see this when Tynianov, like Shklovsky, without bringing in sociology, speaks about the demand of the epoch. The demand changes from one epoch to another but we cannot track down this change to the point of predicting it (in Tynianov’s words, when literature is commissioned to discover India, it discovers America). We cannot predict it due to the “optical laws” of the interval in artistic evolution, i.e., we do not see the coil spring of history; however, we have to believe that it exists. Similarly, in My Chronicle [Moi vremennik] and elsewhere, Eikhenbaum discusses the regularities of unpredictable history. Finally, equally revealing is such Opoyaz category coined by Tynianov as that of a “literary fact,” when every contemporary can tell a text that is artistic from a text that is not, based on the sensibility of that epoch. The dichotomy of Shklovsky, Tynianov, and Eikhenbaum’s thinking manifests itself in the Opoyaz Formalism’s conflicting orientations: the literary system (konstruktivnaia ustanovka) vis-a-vis the systemic violation of the system (ostranenie, defamiliarization). This duality also underlies the very definition of the essay. I argue that the very uniqueness of Opoyaz theory is that it was a form of essayism.

ASEEES, 2018

Viktor Shklovsky’s Opoyaz brand of Russian Formalism (unlike its Moscow varieties) stands out in ... more Viktor Shklovsky’s Opoyaz brand of Russian Formalism (unlike its Moscow varieties) stands out in Russian and world history as a rare combination of rigorous theory and extreme performativity. Shklovsky wrote that he was both a fish zoologist and a fish; that is, as a theorist he played by the same rules as writers: confronting the ossified canon with its anxiety of influence and, by contrast, expressing his inmost ideas as if in jest, to protect them; ever looking for a new vision in new, junior and peripheral, genres.
A case in point is Shklovsky literary magazine Petersburg, which is insufficiently known and underappreciated, albeit a vivid example of Opoyaz Formalism’s performative scholarship. Shklovsky, Tynianov, and others advanced Formalist ideas in this magazine without naming them, often seemingly speaking about other things, such as the female fashion of the season. In that, they relied on the highly performative genre of the feuilleton. The biggest performance though, as I argue, was hidden in the structure of the magazine itself, comparable to an overarching feuilleton.

AATSEEL, 2018

The “convex,” palpable, and multifaceted style of Gogol had mesmerized twentieth-century literar... more The “convex,” palpable, and multifaceted style of Gogol had mesmerized twentieth-century literary theorists. More than most other “classics,” he was a perfect case in point for the theorists as unalike in their beliefs and values as Andrei Bely, the Opoyaz Formalists, and Mikhail Bakhtin.
For the Formalist Boris Eikhenbaum, Gogol’s manner was ideal to illustrate skaz, i.e., a special way of telling the story with the voice that is not neutral but, on contrary, is so peculiar that it constitutes another character in that story. Eikhenbaum’s aim was to show how Gogol’s special way of telling the story by merrily alternating masks, tragic and not, laid bare the fundamental playfulness of art as such. This vision of art was the reason why, while writing about the tragic and the comic as equivalent in “The Overcoat,” Eikhenbaum ultimately diminished the importance of the tragic element (which, according to him, shielded the sentimental readers from the artistic essence of the work, which had allegedly emerged from Gogol’s inner drive to wordplay). That is why Eikhenbaum and his fellow Formalists seem to have championed Gogol’s humor at the expense of the noble and humane tendency ascribed to him by others.
The Formalists’ major opponent, Mikhail Bakhtin, conversely, focused on this tendency with regard to Gogol’s humor. In emphasizing the final cause of Gogol’s humor, Bakhtin had been anticipated by Alexander Slonimsky, who, despite his use of the Formalist terms, also spoke about the butt of the joke in Gogol.
Andrei Bely, interestingly, did not want to dwell on the subject of Gogol’s humor and discussed his style instead. Yet this was not done to slight humor in Gogol; on the contrary, Bely wrote: “[I]t can be said about Gogol’s humor: it is all; it is everywhere; therefore, is it humor after all?” This leads me to a tentative conclusion. Despite Bely’s penchant for philosophy and Eikhenbaum’s principled decision to avoid it in scholarship, they have one thing in common. Gogol’s humor mattered to them structurally, and this structural understanding made the comic in Gogol’s humor less important to them. Unlike Bakhtin or Slonimsky, humor was a matter of formal cause for Eikhenbaum and probably for Bely as well. To what degree it was and what is at stake when formal cause is opposed to final—these are the issues tackled in my paper.

On the Joke and the Joker Conference, Yale University, April 1 2016

Today’s idea of humor compels a psychological reading, but Russian Formalism, which practiced rep... more Today’s idea of humor compels a psychological reading, but Russian Formalism, which practiced replacing “psychology” with “structure,” offers an alternative. Viktor Shklovsky’s “Toward a Theory of the Comic” analyzes the problem “geometrically,” showing that the structure of jokes [anekdoty] does not guarantee humor, e.g. when the same constructions are found in Dostoyevsky. Elsewhere, Shklovsky writes about puns, defining them as “the intersection of two semantic [. . .] planes on the same sign (word).” Nothing is said about humor. Puns needn’t necessarily be humorous.
Hence the question: does humor nest in certain structures, and do they remain humorous when not “funny?” In ancient medicine, humor denoted the four bodily fluids, after which it evolved to mean something comic as when one is whimsical having indulged in one of the four humors instead of keeping them in balance—the condition of physical and mental health. But whimsicality and the comic are not tantamount. Thus the Formalist Evgeniia Zhurbina explained the deliberately disjointed composition of the often not-so-witty Soviet feuilletons as a remnant of the play of wit that historically characterized this genre.
This is also true of Shklovsky’s writing, famous for its unpredictable switches between various themes. These texts read as witty, but often they are not “funny” (e.g. “Third Factory”). So are they still humorous? Does humor depend on the comic? These are the questions the paper raises.

“One Hundred Years of Making Things Strange (Ostranenie).” Hunter College CUNY, September 30 2016

The author of the term estrangement [ostranenie], Viktor Shklovsky argued that it is the essence ... more The author of the term estrangement [ostranenie], Viktor Shklovsky argued that it is the essence of genuine art. A true work of art estranges the world, but it is also strange in relation to all other works previously produced. Estrangement in art withstands the automatization of both life and art forms.
In one way or another, we share this understanding when we praise a work for its originality or criticize it for being uninventive. While the criterion of estrangement seems quite effective and in line with today’s dynamic way of looking at art, paradoxes emerge when we try applying it to various texts.
Sometimes, for instance, we are no longer able to feel the originality of a thing that was such initially: its estrangement has itself become automated. And sometimes a writer did not even try to estrange anything and yet embedded estrangement in his/her text. An example of it is the epigraph to Nabokov’s Gift taken from a simple grammar book by P. Smirnovsky: “An oak is a tree. A rose is a flower. A deer is an animal. A sparrow is a bird. Russia is our fatherland. Death is inevitable.” Can we talk of estrangement here? Certainly, and yet who is the author: Nabokov, who re-contextualizes these phrases, or Smirnovsky, who created the construction pregnant with estrangement? My presentation addresses this and other paradoxes the discussion of which does seem to have a great heuristic value.

One Hundred Years of Ostranenie, December 16 2016, The University of Erfurt, Germany

Two equipotent, interwoven yet fundamentally opposed trends coexisted in the Opoiaz variation of ... more Two equipotent, interwoven yet fundamentally opposed trends coexisted in the Opoiaz variation of Russian Formalism. The constructive principle reflected Shklovsky, Tynianov, and Eikhenbaum’s attempt to uncover literature’s structural patterns, first on the level of a text,
then nomothetically, to lay the foundation for the science of literature. But ostranenie presented the unsystematic trend of the Opoiaz Formalism, focused on pattern breaks.

ASEEES, 2016

The Russian Formalists’ ideal for art and for scholarship is quixotic proper. The legendary hidal... more The Russian Formalists’ ideal for art and for scholarship is quixotic proper. The legendary hidalgo could not think himself a knight without fighting the dragons and giants he imagined. Likewise, Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, and Boris Eikhenbaum saw art and scholarship as meaningful only when at war—with other kinds of art and scholarship. Through violence, the Knight of the Rueful Figure shaped his unique self, or, to use modern language, his identity. So did the Formalists.
That violence is a quest for identity is Marshall McLuhan’s well-known statement. When asked about the alternative to it, he answered with one word: dialogue.
The Formalists did not try to embrace the latter for their fear of unprincipled compromise fraught with eclecticism. Each must have his own principle, Eikhenbaum argued, rejecting any suggestions to synthesize Formalism and Marxism. Principle can only be singular, by definition, Eikhenbaum insisted.
This presents Formalism (in its Opoyazian variety) as monologic. Bakhtin’s famous words about seeing oneself through the eyes of the other do not apply. To draw on this metaphor, a knight looks into the eyes of the other, while fighting him, only to see himself, to receive this final evidence of his own singularity. Bakhtin is for stepping over the borders that separate us—for dialogue’s sake. The Formalists are for keeping the borders that delimit and define us. Hence Bakhtin and the Formalists’ very different notions of space. As well as of time since for them both time and space are intertwined. In Bakhtin’s case, it is the concept of the chronotope. In the Formalists’ case, it is that of the epoch, which delimits and defines one historically.
Yet monologism should not necessarily stigmatize the Formalists. And while one-sidedness, as Galin Tihanov observed, was characteristic of both the Formalists and their Marxist rivals, there is one important difference. When writing about Pavel Sakulin, whom the Marxists and the Formalists both criticized for his attempts to synthesize the formal and the sociological approaches to literature, Pavel Medvedev reproached him for the lack of monism. But Eikhenbaum denied monism, saying that, unlike the Marxists, he and his allies are pluralists. If only one principle, only one truth existed for the Marxists, for the Formalists there was a multitude, but each had to stick to his own truth, for identity’s and meaning’s sake.
In the paper, I support these considerations with textual and historical evidence and then speak about the relevance of these two models—the quixotic and the dialogic—for today’s scholarship and art.

ACLA, 2016

Personal as it is, allowing of almost any thematic or compositional incoherence, and letting the ... more Personal as it is, allowing of almost any thematic or compositional incoherence, and letting the author speak his or her own language, the essay seems to be the freest genre. Many essays support this observation, meandering at their authors’ will; and even when rather short, they still have a steady and unhurried energy. Such are Montaigne’s essays, genetically related to the letter and the diary—prosaic forms.
Yet there is also a different kind of essays, stylistically and structurally approximating to the aphorism. Such are some of La Rochefoucauld's and most of Baltasar Gracian's maxims. This second kind of the essay, as I argue, abides by the same law that the Russian Formalist Yuri Tynianov ascribed to verse, which is so “unified and compact” that language in it “is more united and restrained than in conversational speech.” The density of language affects the logic of unfolding the theme: it proceeds straightforwardly in the “prosaic” essay (as the word prose etymologically suggests) whereas in the second type it “crystallizes as a poem” according to Vladimir Shklovsky.
Next, I reflect on the ways in which the two kinds of the essay may develop along with the Web, in the world where people mainly communicate through the Internet, which medium amalgamates and distorts all kinds of messages transmitted through it, including literary ones. Some Internet platforms are better suited for the “prosaic” essay, e.g. blogs, while others seem to favor its “poetic” kind, e.g. Twitter and Facebook. But how conducive is the Internet to the development of the genre of the essay? Will it retain its identity, and what are the minimal preconditions of this genre?

MLA, 2016

This talk was delivered on January 9 at MLA 2016 in Austin, Texas, in the panel entitled “Percept... more This talk was delivered on January 9 at MLA 2016 in Austin, Texas, in the panel entitled “Perceptions of the United States in Stalinist Culture.”

NESEEES Conference, April 2 2016, 2016

It is no mere coincidence that the authors of Stanford Literary Lab’s Pamphlet 1 called their app... more It is no mere coincidence that the authors of Stanford Literary Lab’s Pamphlet 1 called their approach quantitative formalism. The idea of distant reading, i.e., of reading literature in terms of its evolutionary patterns, and approaching form itself as meaning-laden rather than an appendage of “content”—all this brings together quantitative formalism with Russian Formalism of the late-1910s and 1920s. At the same, the theoretical legacy of Formalism challenges DH as in Shklovsky's defamiliarization theory, which insists on literature’s inherent unpredictability and the impossibility to systematize the study of it. This makes Russian Formalism more than a mere precursor or yet another adversary of DH, but its intellectual contemporary.

MLA, 2016

This talk was delivered on January 9 at MLA 2016 in Austin, Texas, in the panel entitled “Claudel... more This talk was delivered on January 9 at MLA 2016 in Austin, Texas, in the panel entitled “Claudel et ses publics.”

NESEEES Conference, April 1 2017, 2017

Many twentieth century literary scholars undertook prominent attempts to uncover patterns in hist... more Many twentieth century literary scholars undertook prominent attempts to uncover patterns in history, the Russian Formalists among them, especially Boris Eikhenbaum with his interpretation of history as a “science of double vision.” As significant are Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of history through allegory and Erich Auerbach’s interpretation of it through the concept of figura. Despite the prominence of these three theories, the German ones have been scarcely compared with the Russian. By comparing all three, I invite you to join me in my musings about the significance of each.

Доклад был прочитан на конференции «Лирическая проза в западной литературе» 15 июня 2018 г. в ИМЛИ РАН, 2018

Эссе, кажется, свободнее прочих форм. Оно бежит строгих определений; эссе – опыт, набросок, проба... more Эссе, кажется, свободнее прочих форм. Оно бежит строгих определений; эссе – опыт, набросок, проба пера; оно, кажется, принципиально незавершимо – даже принципиальнее, чем роман в концепции Бахтина. Об эссе легче говорить апофатически, оперируя негативными определениями, – проще сказать, чем эссе не является. В известном смысле эссе бесформенно, но эта бесформенность имеет границы – они пролегают между тех форм, тех способов завершения, которых эссе касается боковой своей стороной; эссе определяется тем, в чем себе отказывает. Это аналогично верлибру, который, по замечанию Тынянова, будучи лишен ритма, лишь обнажает его конструктивную, основополагающую, роль в стихе. Таким образом, эссе, этот наисвободнейший жанр, самой своей бесформенностью заставляет обратить внимание на форму. Какова же форма эссе?
Рискну предположить, что у эссе две формы: прозаическая и, так сказать, стиховая.

Новый журнал, 2022

Stand-up tragedy в стихах и снах на фоне вторжения России в Украину. Опубликована в номере № 309 ... more Stand-up tragedy в стихах и снах на фоне вторжения России в Украину. Опубликована в номере № 309 (2022 г.) и № 310 (2023 г.) "Нового журнала" (The New Review).

East West Literary Journal, 2023

The New Review, 2021

Нельзя же глядеть не моргая, нельзя жить и никогда не смыкать глаз. Не может же человек всё время... more Нельзя же глядеть не моргая, нельзя жить и никогда не смыкать глаз. Не может же человек всё время вести прямую линию. Человек отрывается от реальности, как от ожога. Но время не проходит. Проходит жизнь, как трансатлантический полет. Самолет садится, и ты опять не досмотрел кино. И так из раза в раз. И в следующий раз, через полгода, год, ты с теми же героями – мизансцены те же, еда та же, вот только мили не набавляются – наоборот, и когда-нибудь их не хватит, а ведь летаешь ты в кредит. Затменьями, слепыми пятнами, железнодорожными туннелями, закрытыми иллюминаторами, малевичами разрубаются сцены: ВКЛ – ВЫКЛ – выколи глаз. That’s how you switch between boarding zones, flight zones (each time from a different predator), war zones, as well as those climatic, time, and erogenous – until there’s a zoning out, a passing out – or away. Чувствуешь себя фигурой, пытающейся понять, кто она, по тому, как она ходит. (Здесь можно было бы изобразить шахматную доску; черные клетки – провалы в памяти, темнота; белые клетки – события, знаковые переживания; переход с клетки на клетку – комбинации.) Но всякий раз этой фигуре приходится отскочить в сторону – а разве так можно было ходить? Выходит, можно. И вот приходится гадать заново. А все эти буквочисла (пресловутые e2 – e4)? Условность. Самовольно положенный предел. Сеть, заброшенная в бесконечность. А противник? Не видно, да и ты, чай, не Сюдов. Есть только белое и черное – действо и бездействие, и есть между всем этим – я, и есть между всем этим – мы. А что же я?

Новый журнал, 2020

Стихи. Посвящаются Александре Львовой

Интерпоэзия, 2020

Подборка стихов в журнале "Интерпоэзия".

Gastarbajter. Slavic Diaspora Magazine, 2020

Poems and an essay

Звезда / Zvezda, 2019

Перед вами - теоретико-эстетические фрагменты, опыты медленного чтения. Согласно автору, грехи ис... more Перед вами - теоретико-эстетические фрагменты, опыты медленного чтения. Согласно автору, грехи искусства суть стеснение, пошлость, уязвленность, стыд, ложь. Если принять наивно сформулированный взгляд на искусство как зеркало жизни, понятно, почему в искусстве все наоборот, в том числе и понятие греха.

Новый журнал / The New Review, 2019

Стихи и эссе

Новый мир, 2018

Стихи и эссе

Жанр этих эстетических фрагментов - эссеистика, а не академическая статья, однако серьезности в н... more Жанр этих эстетических фрагментов - эссеистика, а не академическая статья, однако серьезности в них столько же, если не больше.

ОБ ЭТИХ ЭССЕ
И крепость и объем — понятия эстетические, универсальные, доказательством чему служат и гастрономия, и история искусства. Кофе, например, можно любить разный: австрийский «меланж» не так чтоб очень силен, зато благодаря теплому молоку и сливкам нежен, объемист и действует умиротворяюще; а вот кофе турецкий, как известно, мал, но сколь крепок и богат на вкус! Точно так же и в Испании XVII века были те, кто предпочитал так называемую поэзию культеранизма, или гонгоризма, в которой простейшие понятия выражались изощренными, длинными и велеречивыми загадками. Но были в Испании и те, кто тяготел к так называемому консептизму — нарочито емкому в своих формулировках, зато — как крепкий кофе своим ароматом — раскрывающему перед знатоком потаенные смыслы. Ко второму роду принадлежат эти эссе, свободно переходящие от вопросов искусства к житейским, от религиозных размышлений — к гражданственным. Они написаны для тех, кто питью предпочитает послевкусие, а созерца-нию — воспоминание об увиденном, когда сызнова рисуешь в своем уме встреченный когда-то пейзаж. Монтень писал иначе, писал развернуто, но у короткого, как стих, эссе есть свои славные имена: Бальтасар Грасиан в Испании, Фрэнсис Бэкон в Англии, Ларошфуко во Франции, Шлегель в Германии, Шкловский в России… Дотошной аргументации эти авторы предпочитали высокую концентрацию мысли, которая под давлением меняет свои свойства и дробится на мысли новые, такие же плотные, интенсивные и оттого — как глоток ристретто — волнующие. Потому требует особого подхода короткий эссе (некогда, как и кофе, слово это в русском языке было мужского рода). Те отрывки, которые вы здесь видите, не требуют мгновенного прочтения. Читать их рекомендуется не подряд, а, как говорилось раньше, враздробь, и, если читатель приободрится от этого, автор сочтет свою цель достигнутой.

Syndic Literary Journal, 2019

National Translation Month, 2021

Futurism is the Future Four Translations of Russian Futurist Poets with an Essay by Basil Lvoff W... more Futurism is the Future Four Translations of Russian Futurist Poets with an Essay by Basil Lvoff We're delighted to present today four new translations of Russian Futurist Poets translated by Basil Lvoff, accompanied by an insightful essay that provides historical context, personal details from the lives of the poets, and illuminating process notes. We hope you'll enjoy Lvoff's erudite article and his fun selection of poems as much as we did.

National Translation Month, 2020

We are delighted to present today these new translations of poems by Lydia Chukovskaya translated... more We are delighted to present today these new translations of poems by Lydia Chukovskaya translated by Basil Lvoff—who also included his notes on the process and some very interesting details about the poet’s life. “Lydia Chukovskaya is best known for her novella Sofia Petrovna—an account of Stalin’s Great Purge, unique for having been written in the midst of it (when few dared write the truth) and for having survived it, unlike a great many testimonies that were confiscated and destroyed.” Written in a spare, documentary-style language, these poems burn the page with their intensity, conjuring unforgettable associations. Basil Lvoff’s masterful translation capture the musicality of the rhymes, giving the reader a powerful impression of the Russian voice. We hope you’ll enjoy this selection as much as we did.

National Translation Month, 2018

Translations of Rozhdestvensky, Balmont, Turgenev, Tyutchev, Fet

National Translation Month, 2019

Translations of Baratynsky, Tyutchev, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva

Published: Inventory (5) 2015

Linguistic Frontiers

The interest of this dissertation is how our understanding of literary development—as gradual or ... more The interest of this dissertation is how our understanding of literary development—as gradual or revolutionary; self-governed or socio-politically determined; like or unlike biological evolution—informs the status, meaning, and value of literature and literary studies. The dissertation shows how this problem—most pressing in our post-logocentric age—was addressed at the dawn of contemporary literary theory by the Russian Formalists. The latter are compared with Distant Readers, i.e., the Digital Humanists from, or conducting research in dialogue with, the Stanford Literary Lab: Franco Moretti, Matthew Jockers, Ted Underwood, William Benzon, and others. This dissertation argues that both Russian Formalism and Distant Reading were brought about by a big bang of data: Big Data proper for Digital Humanities, and in the case of Russian Formalism, the abundance of literary and linguistic facts that nineteenth-century positivists amassed yet failed to explain through a universal linguistic...

Russian Literature, 2021