Osovsky O. E., Kirzhaeyeva V. P.

Mikhail Mikhaylovich Bakhtin: an Attempt to Reconstruct a Scholar’s Biography. Part 2   P. 90-103.

UDC 821.161.1.09(092)

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2021.70.1.010

Abstract. The article reconstructs a scholarly biography of M. M. Bakhtin, an outstanding philosopher of the 20th century, whose influence on the development of humanities in Russia and abroad can hardy be overestimated and remains strong even in the 21st century. One of the most important goals of Bakhtin studies as an interdisciplinary humanitarian research of recent decades is the investigation of M. M. Bakhtin’s philosophy and its evolution during the 1910s–1970s as well as the study of external factors, philosophical schools and trends that influenced Bakhtin’s philosophy. M. M. Bakhtin’s collected works (published in 2012), research works conducted by V. L. Makhlin, N. I. Nikolayev, N. A. Pankov, N. D. Tamarchenko, L. A. Gogotisjvili, M. Kholkvist, G. S. Morson, K. Emerson, G. Tikhanov, K. Brendist, articles and essays written by S. G. Bocharov, V. V. Kozhinov, B. N. Turbin, and other works gain special significance in the present context. The authors of the article describe M. M. Bakhtin’s life and work through the prism of an interdisciplinary approach, employ the methods of microhistory and the idea of little time, rely on the investigations of Russian and foreign scholars working in the field of Bakhtin studies and their own research conduced in the 1990s-2010s. The article focuses on some landmarks of the philosopher’s scholarly biography, characterizes his major achievements, investigates the evolution of his philosophical and aesthetical views and his research methodology, characterizes the scholarly and socio-cultural contexts of Bakhtin’s work in Newel and Vitebsk, analyzes Bakhtin’s “Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics”, investigates his manuscript about Rabelais and his late works.

The second part of the article attempts to restructure the philosopher’s life and work from the beginning of his exile in Kustanay till 1975. The article shows that Bakhtin’s works of the 1930s bear witness to the fact that Bakhtins’ sociological poetics gradually transforms into historical poetics. The article deals with Bakhtin’s investigation of Rabelais’ works in the 1940s–1950s. It underlines the importance of Bakhtin’s ideas for the development of both Soviet and foreign humanitarian studies in the 1960s–1970s.

Keywords: M. M. Bakhtin, scholarly biography, little time, cultural dialogue, history of Russian philology, Bakhtin studies, biographical method, microhistory, sociological poetics, problems of Dostoyevsky’s poetics.

References

 

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