Information about the author:
Olga A. Kaznina
Olga A. Kaznina, DSc in Philology, Senior Researcher, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 а, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
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ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0014-1298
Abstract:
The present article unfolds the attitudes of D.P. Sviatopolk-Mirsky — one of the leading Russian émigré literary critics — towards M. Gorky’s creative art and political journalism. The attempt is made to put side by side his views, expressed during the decade from the beginning of the 1920s to the early 1930s in the English literary press, as well as in Russian émigré periodicals, such as “Sovremennye zapiski”, “Blagonamerennyi”, “Versty”, and also in the fundamental “History of Russian Literature” (1926, 1927). Viewed together these judgements allow to look at Gorky with the eyes of his contemporary man of letters anв ideological opponent. Also this concrete material reflects the evolution of the worldview and aesthetic outlook of D.P. Sviatopolk-Mirsky.
Keywords: M. Gorky, D.P. Sviatopolk-Mirsky, Russian literature of the 20th century, Russian émigré literary criticism, Russians in England, Anglo-Russian literary contacts.