On unfinishable work at the turn of the 19–20th centuries: a problem statement

UDC 82:1

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.2-21.097  

Smirnova Natalia N.,

Candidate of Philology, Senior Researcher,

Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

e-mail: nnsmirnova@mail.ru

The study focuses on the special status of fundamentally unfinishable work in the Russian literature at the turn of the 19th — the first third of the 20th century. In this period such forms as a fragment, passage and outline — symbolically representing parts of the conception, but not leading to the fullness of its implementation — have special significance. In this period conception of a literary work implies some features of an ideal work, which either cannot be realized or should be realized in the distant future. The unrealized and unfinished work thus has utopian features, since its realization is associated with an indefinite / ideal future. The study of such ideas will highlight the phenomenon of the unrealized work, which still remains on the periphery of the theoretical analysis. The oral and written evidences of the unrealized work, forming a whole area of not fully developed, but only intended, influenced on intellectual horizon of the epoch and the forms of other, finished, works. Indirect forms of realization of the conception, which left traces in diaries, notebooks, memorials, fragmentary forms, are extraordinary important for understanding the literary process and the intellectual history of the twentieth century as a whole.

Keywords: theory of literature, unfinishable and unfulfilled work, history of philology, literature of the late XIX century — the first third of the XX century, Russian literature, literary process, intellectual history.

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