Debate Background on the “Neo Romantic Period” in the Soviet Literary Research of the 1960-1980s

Abstract

The article is a local research related to the solution of the general theoretical literary issue: whether Romanticism is beyond Romanticism boundaries as a certain historical trend. The article reveals the methodology of solving this problem that combines the achievements of ‘sociological’ and ‘formal’ national schools of literary research, as well as uses the method of philosophical metahermeneutics. In addition, the article provides a panorama of methodological approaches to the discussion of the Romanticism problem in foreign literary research. The bulk of the article examines the controversy in the Soviet literary research of the 60-80s in the 20th century about the possible existence of ‘new Romanticism’ in the initial method of ‘socialist realism’. This controversy has revealed two opposite approaches to the issue of ‘Romanticism post Romanticism’. The first approach expressed in the statements of G. Pospelov, V. Vanslov N. Gulyaev, E. Maymin (et al.) categorically denied ‘Romanticism post Romanticism’ as “Romanticism had already existed before”. The second approach, represented by A. Kireyeva, A. Ovcharenko, U. R. Focht, on the contrary, suggested the possibility (and even the regularity) of this phenomenon in the Soviet art. The article compares the seemingly typical Soviet polemic with the analogous polemic about Romanticism that erupted in the Russian literary criticism of the 30-40s in the 19th century. In ‘the debate about Romanticism’ the points of view both of ‘the Romanticism deniers’ referring to a unicity of (medieval) Romanticism – such as Nikolai Nadezhdin, and the supporters of the concept of ‘Romanticism and Timelessness’ – such as Vissarion Belinsky, were presented. The appearance of identical theoretical collisions in the Russian and Soviet literary research is inferred from the objective existence of the two types of thinking – analytical and synthetic – and the inevitability of ideological clashes of these types of thinking supporters. Analytical thinking is the ability to see and identify only those cultural phenomena that have been passed and digested by the mankind’s previous experience, and the movement of culture is determined by the “eternal side of nature and the human spirit” for synthetic thinking (Belinsky, 1981).

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s2p191