Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Russian formalism'

This dissertation explores the “dialogic” interactions between literature and literary theory in Boris Eikhenbaum’s novel Marshrut v bessmertie (1933). Through a narratological and stylistic analysis of Eikhenbaum’s text, featuring a complex structure of thematic and intonational layers, and the definition of its role within the Russian literary milieu of the late 1920s, this research aims at showing how the novel stages its author’s meditations about both the limits and the possibilities of the newly-born Formal method and, at the same time, his searching for a new, post-formalist self-definition.

My dissertation focuses on the notion of “gesture” as a somatic manifestation of psychological experience. This view of movement was elaborated by late 19th-century psychologists, who gave up the metaphysical notion of the soul in favor of neuro-physiological approaches to behavior. My study shows how the new scientific discourse penetrated into a broader cultural sphere, generating wide interest in the question how the body participates in and reflects affective and cognitive processes. I examine the modes of recording, representing and interpreting body movement as “expressive.” Based on archival materials and periodicals, I chart out avenues by which the ideas and methods of physiological psychology reached artists and writers – a task, which involves evaluating institutional practices and cultural-political trends that promoted interdisciplinary engagements. Ultimately, my study demonstrates how scientific discourse transformed techniques of film acting, prompted film industries’ inquiries into spectators’ physical reactions, and spurred literary scholars’ investigations of poets’ intonation and body movement. Yet, rather than positing the direct influence of science, I attend to a variety of ways in which writers and artists reinterpreted, defamiliarized and resisted the positivist outlook brought forward by physiological psychology. In Chapter 1, I show how Viktor Shklovskii drew on William James’s theory of the corporeal experience of emotion and Wilhelm Wundt’s ideas on the gestural origin of language to discuss Russian Futurist poetry as a “ballet for the organs of speech.” Chapter 2 analyzes Boris Eikhenbaum’s essays on poetic declamation by placing them in the context of the Petrograd Institute of the Living Word. In this organization, Russian Formalists worked alongside speech therapists and psychologists, using parlograph records of poetry performances. I compare their methods of registering poetic intonations to similar endeavors by American phoneticians Edward Scripture and R.H. Stetson. Chapter 3 traces the origins of Lev Kuleshov’s system of film actors’ training, arguing that his ideas emerged at the juncture of avant-garde theater, Pavlovian reflexology, and labor efficiency movement. Chapter 4 considers psycho-physiological approaches to film spectatorship, focusing on American and Soviet efforts to assess the emotional responses of filmgoers by photographing their facial reactions and registering changes in their vital signs.

The present work deals with the literary-theoretical work of the Petrograd Formalists - those who participated in the OPOiaZ in the 1910s and early 1920s - with a focus on that oflurii Tynianov. It attempts to unpack the representation of their literary-theoretical work as 'science' [nauka] by exploring how that category was constructed in dialogue with their evolving conception of literature. It is argued in the first chapter that, for the duration of their project, they conceptualized the 'language of nauka' - and their own prose by association - in accordance with the laws of their theory of language. It is argued in the second chapter that, as the Formalists developed a theory of literary history as an endless succession of 'revolutions' in the period 1919- 24, they tried to make their theorization of that process take a correspondingly revolutionary form, one in which the sciences of nature and those of history would become one. It is argued in the third chapter that, as the Formalists came to theorize the connection between literature and life in the period 1924-30, they practised a new 'type' of nauka in the form of the authorial collection of articles, one in which their own work was historicized in a 'literary' manner. It is concluded that, for the OPOiaZ, nauka came into being as a function of its object: as the Formalists transformed their conception of literature, their realization of nauka was correspondingly transformed. The conclusion then problematizes the categorization of Formalism as a purely 'scientific', extra-'literary' movement, since emphasis is placed on their authorship of that categorization, and raises broader questions about the origin of modem 'literary theory'.

O objetivo deste trabalho, num primeiro momento, foi extrair das 65 cartas que João Guimarães Rosa remeteu à sua tradutora para o inglês, Harriet de Onís, durante a tradução de Sagarana, as linhas gerais que configuram sua poética. Um breve panorama da gênese e da recepção deste livro, seguidos pelos comentários às mencionadas cartas, abriu nossa pesquisa. Depois disso realizamos uma análise do conto Conversa de bois, oitava narrativa de Sagarana, enriquecida pelas declarações do escritor na referida correspondência em torno do seu processo de criação. Para complementar a análise e esclarecer certas questões relativas à técnica compositiva do autor não tratadas especificamente em sua poética, recorremos a alguns conceitos-chave de pensadores de diferentes tradições que, embora desenvolvidos em épocas distintas, encontram seu lugar nesse estudo do universo heteróclito criado por JGR. Uma atenção especial foi dada ao Formalismo Russo (Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), Viktor Chklóvski (1896- 1984), Iuri Tyniánov (1894-1943) e Ossip Brik (1888-1945)) cujos preceitos muitos deles em consonância com a poética rosiana foram uma referência válida para a metodologia de nossa análise.
The first, aim of this work was to draw the general lines that establish João Guimarães Rosas poetics from the 65 letters the author sent to his translator Harriet de Onís, during her English translation of Sagarana whose brief genetic and receptive panorama, together with Rosas epistolary remarks, open our research. After that, we performed an analysis of the short story Conversa de bois, Sagaranas eighth narrative, taking into consideration the mentioned writers informations about his creative process. To enlighten the analysis and clarify certain questions related to the author´s compositional technique, we made use of some key-concepts of thinkers from different traditions, which, in spite of belonging to different periods, found their place in this work about the heteroclite universe created by JGR. A special attention was given to Russian Formalism (Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), Viktor Chklóvski (1896-1984), Iuri Tyniánov (1894-1943) e Ossip Brik (1888-1945)) whose precepts many of them in consonance with Rosas poetics were a valid reference for the methodology of our analysis.

L'objectif général de cette thèse était de développer le projet d'une recherche transversale dans le domaine des sciences sociales, instruite comme une philosophie politique du langage en mobilisant les concepts deleuziens, notamment celui de la micropolitique. Sa réalisation a demandé une contextualisation théorique et historique de la politique de la langue en France et en Russie - et en Union Soviétique -, compte tenu de l'importance exceptionnelle que les acteurs des deux grandes révolutions ont attribué à cette discipline. Selon l'hypothèse centrale de ce projet, la découverte de la micropolitique est le trait distinctif de chaque révolution, et c'est l'examen du "tissu moléculaire" autour de nouveaux centres de pouvoir qui rend possible le discernement des forces opérant la rupture politique, axiologique et épistémologique avec l'ancien régime. La recherche comparée des approches politiques de la langue en France et en Union Soviétique devait permettre d'éclairer leur rôle dans le contexte du nation-building républicain qui ouvre l'époque moderne, et dans la construction culturelle soviétique "nationale en forme, prolétaire en contenu" qui sert de modèle à la politique contemporaine de l'identité, particulièrement vis-à-vis des minorités. Le but de cette recherche fut enfin de présenter une nouvelle typologie des fonctions véhiculaires du langage qui se trouve au cœur du projet politique moderne
The general aim of this thesis is to develop a project of transversal research in the domain of social sciences that we designate as political philosophy of language by appealing to the concepts of the contemporary French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. The accomplishment of this task demands a theoretical and historical contextualization of language policy in France and Soviet Union in the revolutionary period with special attention to the importance attached to this field by the main politic-makers of bath countries. According to the central hypothesis of this project, the essential part of a revolution is the discovery of "molecular tissue" around the new canters of power that makes possible the mobilization of forces that will produce a political, axiological as well as epistemological rupture with an Old Regime. Comparative research of the language policies in France and the Soviet Union permits to reveal their impact on the republican "nation-building" which opens the so-called "political modernity" period and on the construction of the cultures "proletarian in content, national in form" in the Soviet republics. The latter is often used as the base for the contemporary politics of identity, especially concerning the minorities. Such research also opens a debate on the possibility of a "revolution in language", decidedly repudiated, by Saussure, and an analysis that makes possible an elaboration of a new typology of the vehicular functions of language

Through a critical examination of the works of Tom Robbins, this thesis interrogates the historical evolution and appropriation of the magic(al) realist tradition. In so doing, it situates Robbins’ writing within the framework of postmodernism, and explores the ontological implications inherent in Robbins’ use of magic(al) realist concepts and conventions. With a specific emphasis on the notion of cultural consciousness, this thesis analyzes the object- oriented cosmologies embodied and espoused in three of Robbins’ novels: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980), Skinny Legs and All (1990), and B is for Beer (2009). It unpacks the ideological figuration of various textual devices evident in Another Roadside Attraction (1971) and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) – particularly the gendered use of unreliable narrators – and, with reference to Jitterbug Perfume (1984), relates Robbins’ appropriation of the magic(al) realist tradition to the American counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s. Employing poststructuralist, feminist, ecofeminist, and postcolonial discourses, this thesis ultimately seeks to position Robbins’ writing within the context of a radical emancipatory politics that views (and uses) literature as an ideological space in which to challenge, reinterpret, and democratize Western metanarratives.

Né en 1935 à Estérençuby (Pyrénées Atlantiques), Eñaut Etxamendi est écrivain, poète et chanteur en langue basque. Dans son œuvre narrative, il décrit la société agraire du Pays Basque Nord – concrètement, la province de la Basse-Navarre – et son processus de désagrégation sociale et culturelle à partir des années 60. Quelle place accorder dans la littérature basque moderne à cette œuvre, qui sublime l'idylle détruite ? Quelle est sa place et son originalité au vu des productions des auteurs basques contemporains? Quelle part de l’œuvre d’Etxamendi se situe sous l’influence de la pensée nationaliste et quel peut bien être son degré de participation à la construction de mythes identitaires? Nous utilisons les concepts du formalisme russe pour décrire la structure, le matériau littéraire et le dynamisme de l'œuvre etxamendienne. Puis, nous interrogeons ces résultats par l'apport du post-formalisme et des propositions bakhtiniennes et tâchons de situer l'œuvre littéraire d'Eñaut Etxamendi dans son rapport à l'idylle détruite et au Cкaз. Finalement, nous faisons intervenir l'ethnocritique de la littérature et le post-colonialisme, afin d'inscrire l'œuvre littéraire d'Eñaut Etxamendi dans « la mémoire longue d’une communauté discursive » et dans le contexte particulier des années 1960-1990 qui alliait la vitalité politique à la vitalité culturelle. L’objectif de ce questionnement est d’approfondir dans la connaissance de l’œuvre d’un auteur mais aussi d’une région littéraire du Pays Basque encore trop peu étudiées
Eñaut Etxamendi was born in Esterençuby (Pyrénées Atlantiques, France), in 1935. He is a writer, poet an singer in basque language. In his literary work, Eñaut Etxamendi describes the agrarian society who was disappearing by the 60's in the North Basque Country – concretely in the province of Basse-Navarre – and the process of social and cultural disbanding that occured then.Where can be placed Eñaut Etxamendi's literary writing – sprung up in geographical and linguistic periphery – and its sublimated « idyllic chronotope » in basque modern literature ? Which is his originality comparing to other contemporary basque writer's works ? What is Etxamendi's part of work under nationalist theories's influence and up to which point has his literature pertained to the discourse of identity ? Our search is an attempt to improve knowledge of a few known author and few known literary area of Basque Country

This thesis elaborates and performs a form of cultural legal studies that examines the overlap between legal theory, theology and popular culture. In doing so it makes use of, and mobilises, the concept of estrangement or ‘making’ strange put forward by Victor Shklovsky and the Russian Formalists (amongst others). It does this at two levels: first, by examining the genres of speculative fiction as genres of estrangement that ‘make strange’ their representations of law, legality and justice; and second, by proposing a mode and methodology of cultural legal reading as one that itself ‘makes strange’, rendering the texts under analysis otherwise. As such, it sees in the stories told within the genres of speculative fiction not simply flights of fancy or postulates of pure imagination with no relation or reference to reality. Rather, they produce a meditation on and mediation of the world itself—one that opens us to see the world both in its createdness and contingency, as storied and imbued with meaning. It is for this reason that I turn to speculative fiction in relation to a mode of the cultural legal. Rather than focusing on the direct representations of law, legal institutions and legal actors within popular culture, the engagement of speculative fiction provides a way to understand and re-think the stories of and about law themselves. In the analysis of motifs of law and legality, of justice, authority and legitimacy that are ‘made strange’ by their situation in worlds imagined differently, we find the potential to think and see them otherwise, not in the sense of simply a utopian (or dystopian) looking forward through the potential of the imagination, but an understanding of the imagination’s setting free of these concepts enabling a different reflection and understanding of them.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Law School
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

L’intérêt porté aux filmographies de cinéastes russes aussi différents qu’Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev et Kira Mouratova aboutit à la découverte d’une quête esthétique commune propre aux trois réalisateurs : l’élaboration d’une image cinématographique modelée par le temps autant dans sa matérialité filmique que dans sa puissance métaphorique. Cette approche artistique semble cristallisée dans le terme "kinoobraz" théorisé par Andreï Tarkovski qui s’impose dès lors comme un médium entre la recherche théorique et le champ d’expérimentation analytique de ce travail. Le terme russe "kinoobraz" traduit en français par « image cinématographique » recèle autant de problèmes que de potentiel théorique et analytique. La nature de cette recherche consiste donc en une appropriation, une réinvention et une mise à l’épreuve d’une notion ("kinoobraz"), trois opérations menées simultanément dans un parcours multiple. D’abord, une étude à la fois historique et théorique des conceptions russo-soviétiques de l’"obraz" (théologie des icônes orthodoxes à travers les textes de Pavel Florensky, l’"obraz" selon Sergueï Eisenstein, le "kinoobraz" de Tarkovski) révèle toute une série de résonances conceptuelles avec les théories françaises du figural (à partir du texte "Discours, figure" (1971) de Jean-François Lyotard). Cette confrontation entre la généalogie russe du "kinoobraz" et les propriétés esthétiques du figural, alimentée par la pratique de l’analyse filmique comparée, permet la redéfinition du "kinoobraz" comme un outil opératoire d’analyse. Ainsi, la mise à l’épreuve du "kinoobraz" dans le champ d’expérimentations analytiques sur le corpus de référence composé des films d’Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguinstev et Kira Mouratova explore la spécificité temporelle de la matière filmique et du dispositif cinématographique
Focusing on the cinema of three Russian different filmmakers such as Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev and Kira Mouratova, we discover a common aesthetic thread: the development of a film image molded by time both in film's materiality and in its metaphorical power. This artistic approach is crystallized by the term kinoobraz theorized by Andreï Tarkovski, whose ideas and films serve as a link between the theoretical research and the analytic experimentation of the present work. The Russian word "kinoobraz" is usually translated into English as “film image” but this translation does not reveal its full theoretical and analytic potentials. Our research aims at giving this notion its proper place, its reinvention and its use as a tool, all three conducted simultaneously on parallel tracks. Our exploration of this notion includes both historical and theoretical study of the Russian and Soviet conceptions of "obraz" through the theology of orthodox icons found in Pavel Florensky’s texts, its definition by Sergueï Eisenstein, and Tarkovski’s refinement as "kinoobraz". This study reveals a series of conceptual resonances with the French theories of figural (starting with Jean-François Lyotard’s work "Discours, figure" (1971)). The juxtaposition of the Russian genealogy of "kinoobraz" and the aesthetic traits of figural, nurtured by comparative film analysis, allows us to redefine kinoobraz as an analytic tool. Using this tool in the analytic experimentation based on the reference corpus of the films of Andreï Tarkovski, Andreï Zviaguintsev and Kira Mouratova leads us to a deeper understanding of the time specificity of the film matter and the cinematic "dispositif"

M.A.
Lestrade (1949) has already stated that the African people themselves regard traditional praise poems as the highest form of their literary art. Scholars such as Goma (1967), Kunene (1971) and Swanepoel (1983) have already highlighted some aspects concerning the "literariness" of Soho dithoko tsa marena. In this study, an attempt is made to highlight some of the literary features of dithoko within the literary framework established by the Russian Formalists almost a century ago. Focus is placed on the devices used by the traditional composer to create poetic' language, which is different from everyday communicative language. In the study an important vehicle used by traditional composers to create - literariness namely the application of allusion to violate normal language usage is investigated. The interaction between the so-called narrative lines in dithoko and events alluded to in the poems is discussed. Allusion and traditional beliefs are also focused on. The function of poetic devices such as metaphorical language, symbols and poetic diction is also investigated within the framework of the Formalists.

碩士
南華大學
歐洲研究所
102
In the early 20th century proponents of Russian Formalism endeavored to innovate the traditional concept of literature, with a view to establishing an independent “scientific” method for the study of literature. By presenting a series of innovative concepts, such as “the artfulness of literature”, “defamiliarization”, “poetic language”, “raw material”, “practical ordinary language”, “artificial process”, etc., they endowed the theory of the 20th century European literature with brand new aspects. 　　The literary criticism of Russian Formalism started with the distinction of “poetic language” and “ordinary language” and then went on to study the intrinsic rules of literature. Roman Jakobson pointed out that the object of literature is “literariness” (the artfulness of a work), rather than literature itself. In other words, it is the quality of the work that makes it worthy of the name of literariness. On the other hand, Viktor Shklovski presented “Defamiliarization Theory”. By reorganizing raw language material and breaking through people’s stereotyped psychological aesthetic concept of objects, they will be able to see the world anew and will have a better aesthetic perception of objects. 　　Based on Russian poems, an attempt is made to further analyze the influence of “Defamiliarization Theory” of Russian Formalism on the poetic language of modern Taiwanese writers. It is obvious that the purpose of “Defamiliarization” is to make literary works more perceptible. In addition, “metaphor” and “metonym” are not only figures of speech in rhetoric, but also an integrated system of a language. 　　Finally, it can be assumed that, like all the other schools of literary theories, Russian Formalism has its subjectivity and one-sidedness, including the arbitrary application of the literary forms and rules of linguistic to all literary works, and the use of “Defamiliarization” for the sake of Defamiliarization. These are some of the fallible areas in the Theory modern poets using different languages should shun.

The work focuses on the analysis of the poetics of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Invitation to a Beheading in terms of its cultural context. Specifically deals with its relation to the Soviet theatrical avant-garde, with mythopoetic symbolism and early avant-garde. We approach to the novel as a parody of the post-revolutionary avant-garde Soviet theater experiments. Special attention is paid to the fact that due to the theatralization of the text, i.e. assimilation of the novel space with the theatricals, diegesis of Invitation to a Beheading is divided into two equal opposing worlds, each of which represents particular poetics. World built around main character of Cincinnatus is comparable to symbolism, namely to the symbol and symbolistic perception of Andrei Bely. The central principle of this reality is semiotization of the world. The surrounding fictional world creates its opposite as it is shaped by the principle of desemiotization which - as a central aspect of formalistic-futuristic avant- garde - systematically dismantles hero's world. However neither of these worlds is winning. In the end it is the synthesis, which helps the hero get emancipated from the novel's world. The Invitation to a Beheading can therefore be interpreted as original artist's world manifesto which through presentation and...

This study examines the specific aspects of the reception of Russian formalism and the development of the Formal method in Soviet Ukrainian culture in the 1920s - the beginning of 1930s. Russian formalism in the process of reception becomes an important tool for the "modernization" of national culture and, as a result, an instrument for a new phase in the construction of national cultural identity. On that basis, the cultural-historical and ideological context of the development of Ukrainian literary criticism, criticism and (partially) literature of the late 19th - first decades of the 20th century is consistently reconstructed in eight chapters of the work. The first chapter highlights theoretical aspects of the study, reviews critical literature, reconstructs the history of reception of Russian formalism in Russian and Western criticism and the history of literature. The second chapter addresses the historical and theoretical premises of the reception of Formal theory in Ukrainian culture. The next chapter discusses historical and political context of the development of literature and literary criticism in 1917-1920 using the example of multinational post-revolutionary Kiev; a brief review of the theoretical and historical works of the 1920s also appears here. A special focus is put on the...

Zasadniczym przedmiotem rozprawy są dzieje Moskiewskiego Koła Lingwistycznego (dalej: MKL), którego członkowie od 1915 roku stawiali fundamenty pod budowę nowoczesnego, zorientowanego językoznawczo literaturoznawstwa teoretycznego. Celem pracy nie jest jednak wyłącznie analiza koncepcji poszczególnych uczonych związanych z Kołem, lecz także prześledzenie procesu konstytuowania się teorii literatury jako autonomicznej dyscypliny literaturoznawczej, mającej określony przedmiot badań, dysponującej odpowiednimi narzędziami oraz terminologią. Równie ważne zadanie, które postawiła sobie autorka rozprawy, to wskazanie, w jaki sposób niektóre koncepcje wypracowane przez członków MKL migrowały zarówno w przestrzeni geograficznej, jak i dyscyplinarnej, dostarczając inspiracji dla najpłodniejszych nurtów w XX-wiecznej humanistyce. W tym kontekście niezbędne jest prześledzenie roli badaczy związanych z kołem moskiewskim, którzy na emigracji, w większości przypadków wymuszonej okolicznościami politycznymi, rozwijali problemy dyskutowane na zebraniach MKL w innych „kolektywach myślowych”, by przywołać terminologię Ludwika Flecka. Najbardziej reprezentatywny dla tych przemieszczeń, przestrzennych i dyscyplinarnych, jest przypadek Romana Jakobsona oraz Praskiego Koła Lingwistycznego, które nawiązywało do MKL nazwą, strukturą, obszarami badawczymi, a także współdzieliło część członków (Jakobson, Piotr Bogatyriow, Siergiej Karcewski, Nikołaj Trubiecki). Nie można jednak pominąć kolektywów myślowych, które czerpały z dziedzictwa MKL niebezpośrednio, m.in. kół lingwistycznych Kopenhaskiego i Nowojorskiego, tartusko-moskiewskiej szkoły semiotyki czy grupy tak zwanych manipulistów w Izraelu, dokąd w latach 60. i 70. wyemigrowało ze Związku Radzieckiego wielu badaczy. W tych przypadkach transfer kulturowy i naukowy był odroczony w czasie i w przestrzeni, zawsze jednak uwarunkowany, „spleciony” z prywatnymi biografiami poszczególnych uczonych, których wybory życiowe wpływały w takim samym stopniu na rozwój wymienionych nurtów, jak wypracowywane przez nich koncepcje. Wyśledzenie i wysupłanie tych zależności również wchodzi w zakres zawartych w rozprawie rozważań. Rekonstrukcja inicjalnego etapu kształtowania się profesjonalnego literaturoznawstwa teoretycznego uwzględnia badanie dokumentów źródłowych – nie tylko archiwalnych, ale też wspomnień, utworów literackich, publicystyki, rozpraw naukowych – jako wypowiedzi kulturowych, które powstały w określonej sytuacji biograficznej, społecznej i politycznej. Odtworzenia okoliczności i motywacji ich powstania (a także interpretowania) eksponuje tezę, że w humanistyce nowe koncepcje to często zapomniane lub nieco zmodyfikowane dawne pomysły. Przypadek MKL dowodzi, że intuicje naukowe młodych uczonych z Moskwy wyrażane już w drugiej dekadzie minionego stulecia na wiele dziesięcioleci wyprzedzały wiele nurtów XX-wiecznej humanistyki (m.in. poetykę strukturalną, statystyczne badania nad wierszem, studia miejskie czy socjolingwistykę). Podjęcie dyskusji nad dziedzictwem intelektualnym koła moskiewskiego umożliwia zatem reinterpretację historii początków nowoczesnego literaturoznawstwa teoretycznego – konieczną w świetle dostępnych, choć wciąż słabo rozpoznanych świadectw. Rozprawa składa się z czterech rozdziałów i aneksu, który zawiera komentowany przekład czterech protokołów z zebrań MKL, pochodzących z archiwum Koła. Przetłumaczone dokumenty stanowią nie tylko materiał ilustracyjny dla omówionych zagadnień, lecz także odsłaniają tryb pracy moskiewskich badaczy. Analiza protokołów pokazuje spór naukowy in statu nascendi, prezentuje używaną wówczas terminologię (często odmienną od współczesnej), wskazuje aktualne problemy badania literatury i języka, a także sposoby ich rozwiązywania. Stanowi punkt wyjścia dla zawartych w rozprawie rozważań i – zwrotnie – ich materiałowe zwieńczenie.
The core aim of the thesis “The Lost Link: The Role of the Moscow Linguistic Circle in Establishing Modern Literary Studies” is the history of the Moscow Linguistic Circle (MLC) whose members have laid the foundation for the modern, linguistic-oriented literary theory. The goal of the thesis is not only to analyse the ideas of individual scientists associated with the Circle, but also to follow the process of establishing the literary theory as an autonomous scientific discipline with its specific research subject, appropriate tools, and terminology. An equally important task is a demonstration of how some of the concepts developed by the members of the MLC migrated in a geographical and disciplinary space, providing inspiration for the most prolific trends in the 20th century humanities. In this context, it is necessary to trace the role of the researchers associated with the Circle, who developed ideas discussed at meetings of MLC in other “thought collectives” (to recall the terminology of Ludwik Fleck) in exile, in most cases forced by political circumstances. The most representative of these migrations is the case of Roman Jakobson and the Prague Linguistic Circle, which referred to the MLC with its name, structure, research areas and also shared some members (apart from Jakobson – Petr Bogatyrev, Sergei Kartsevsky, Nikolai Trubetzkoy). Some of the “thought collectives” drew on the heritage of the MLC indirectly, including the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen and Linguistic Circle of New York, the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics and the so-called Manipulation School in Israel, where many researchers immigrated from the Soviet Union in the 60s and 70s. In these cases cultural and scientific transfer was postponed in time and space, but always conditioned, “entangled” with the biographies of individual scholars. Their life choices influenced the development of the mentioned trends in the same way as the concepts they developed. Tracking these dependencies also falls within the scope of the thesis. The reconstruction of the initial stage of the history of the literary theory takes into account the study of source documents – memories, literary works, journalism, scientific dissertations. They are interpreted as cultural facts that arose in a specific biographical, social and political situation. Reconstruction of these circumstances emphasises that new concepts in the humanities are often forgotten or slightly modified old ideas. The case of the MLC illustrates that the scientific intuitions of young scholars from Moscow were often ahead of many trends in the 20th century humanities (e.g. structuralism, statistical poetics, urban studies, sociolinguistics). For this reason the discussion on the intellectual heritage of the Moscow Linguistic Circle is also the reinterpretation of the history of the modern literary theory – necessary in the light of the available, yet poorly recognized archival documents. The dissertation consists of four chapters and an annex with a commented translation of four protocols from the archive of the Circle. They are not only illustrative material for the topics discussed in the dissertation, but they also reveal the mode of work of the Moscow researchers. The analysis of the protocols shows the scientific dispute in statu nascendi, presents the terminology, points to current problems in the study of literature and language, as well as ways to solve them. It is a starting point for the considerations contained in the dissertation and also its materialised conclusion.

This study gives the Zulu's views and ideas about celestial bodies and associated natural phenomena and how they illustrate features in both the oral and written literature. It sketches various focussing mainly on The concentration is conceptions about the whole universe celestial bodies and natural phenomena. on the sun, moon, stars, thunder and lightning in poetry and prose both modern and traditional. Emphasis is on the fact that Zulus do not perceive celestial bodies as mere bodies but assign certain beliefs and philosophies to them. In examining these different conceptions, Western as well as African literary theories have been used in this study. I~ ~r=rli~ional izibongo amakhosi are associated with the sun, the moon as well as the stars. Their warriors' attack is associated with the thunderstorm. These celestial bodies are also used as determinants of time in terms of day and night, seasons and different times for different daily chores. In modern poetry these bodies are mainly associated with God and in some instances they are referred to as God himself. In prose they are used as determinants of time and are also used figuratively to describe certain circumstances. The study gives an idea of how Zulus in general perceive these celestial bodies and natural phenomena.
African Languages
D.Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)