Journal archive

Abstract: This review presents the results of the International Conference “The Time of Rid Grachev (In Memory of the Writer: 1935–2004)”. The conference took place on October 22-23 at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkinskiy Dom) and was timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the death of the writer, a “man of the Sixties,” who was highly esteemed in his lifetime by Vera Panova, Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Bitov, Fyodor Abramov, Vasiliy Aksenov, and others. Unfortunately, because of the strictures of censorship, Grachev was barely published and has remained almost unknown up to the present. The goal of this scholarly gathering was to restore the writer’s place among the representatives of the 1960’s and to present his aesthetic and philosophical credo in the historical context of the epoch. Scholars, philologists, teachers, and literary critics from Italy, Norway, China and the United States took part in the work of the conference. The first session of the conference was devoted to clarification of the writer’s biography, and that of his family, on the basis of archival researches, as well as analyses of the poetics of individual works. The papers also discussed aesthetic and philosophical aspects of his journalistic writings and his artistic worldview. A survey of Grachev’s archive and the history of its formation was also presented. The purpose of the second session of the conference was to reveal the complex literary and historical context in which the writer lived and worked. It was planned to examine this very important stage of the Russian literary process of the twentieth century in order to answer the question of whether the literature of the “sixties” openly opposed official socialist realism on completely new principles or whether it was an heir to the best traditions of classical literature and modernism. The connections between Rid Grachev’s creative works and those of the members of his milieu on the one hand and the products of Russian and Western culture on the other showed the organic correlation of uncensored literature with the essential ethical and aesthetic issues of the time. The conference concluded with a presentation of an exhibition of Rid Grachev’s manuscripts, photos, and drawings from the archives of the manuscript division of Pushkinskiy Dom.

About the author(s) :

Elena I. Kolesnikova

Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskiy Dom) of Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4441-565Х

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 29.08.2024; date of publication: 28.12.2024

References:

Dyakonov, I. M. (1995). Kniga vospominanii [Book of Memories]. Saint Petersburg, Fond regional'nogo razvitiya Sankt-Peterburga, Evropeiskii Dom, Evropeiskii Universitet v Sankt-Peterburge. 770 p.

Grachev, R. I. (2013b). Pis'mo zalozhniku [The Letter to the Hostage]. Saint Petersburg, Izdatel'stvo zhurnal «Zvezda». 651 p.

Grachev, R. I. (2013a). Sochineniya [Works]. Saint Petersburg, Izdatel'stvo zhurnal «Zvezda». 656 p.

Kamensky, V. V. (1914). Tango s korovami: zhelezobetonnye poemy [Tango with Cows: Reinforced Concrete Poems]. Moscow, D. D. Burlyuk. 36 p.

Nekrasov, V. N. (1991). Spravka: Stikhi [Reference: Verses]. Moscow, Postskriptum. 84 p.

Vite, T. O. (2003). Pamyat' [The Memory]. In Neva. No. 11, pp. 186–201.