Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
LITERATUROVEDCHESKII
ZHURNAL
The Journal of Literary History and Theory
Peer-reviewed Academic Journal

M.M. BAKHTIN AS AUTHOR AND HERO OF AUTO(BIOGRAPHY)

Smirnov S.A.

Abstract

The article presents an attempt to comprehend the problem of creating a scientific biography of a philosopher. With the traditional understanding of scientific biographies, the principles of scientificity that are preached by their authors (accuracy, completeness, reliability, objectivity) begin to be tested for strength when writing biographies of authors such as Bakhtin. The author of the article shows that in this case it is necessary to develop a method of biographical story that is adequate to its hero. In the case when documents are always incomplete and inaccurate, the biographer needs to build a different method, more like phenomenological self-restraint, refraining from his own projections and constructions and listening more to the intonation of his hero, which helps to penetrate into the time in which he lived and become witness of that time. The author of the biography must recreate the atmosphere of the time in which his hero lived, so that time itself, time, speaks with his voice.

Keywords

biography; author; hero; time; intonation; M.M. Bakhtin; Yu.M. Lotman; B. Pasternak.

For citation

Smirnov, S.A. “M.M. Bakhtin as Author and Hero of Auto(biography). Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 1(59), 2023, pp. 22–35.

DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2023.59.02

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