Gurevich, P. S. ‘There is a Blessed Power in Accords of Living Words…’

Abstract: In his critical review the author touches upon the two theses written by the Russian researchers I. L. Galinskaya and V. I. Mildon. Recently Svetlana Yakovlevna Levit has published many valuable books as part of the publishing project ‘Humanitas’. Her interest for literature deserves to be highly recognized and supported. There are major scientists in our country who are able to provide a profound expertise of serious literary phenomena due to their comprehensive knowledge of science and bright theoretical analysis. The authors reviewed here follow the principle that not only famous literary works should be analyzed. Sometimes we can also analyze a literary work which is widely read even though it is not an evident masterpiece. A researcher can find archetypes, magic symbols and codes in these works, too. This principle is followed by the two authors of the reviewed theses. V. I. Mildon’s thesis has a virtuosic combination of ideas, emotional states, philosophical insights and folklore motives. Both theses are analyzed by Pavel Gurevich using the comparative method allowing to find the ‘blessing power’ behind the ‘living words’ and different plots. Pavel Gurevich has also used the methods of philosophical understanding of human and principles of philosophical anthropology. For the first time in the academic literature Pavel Gurevich provides a detailed analysis of I. Galinskaya’s work ‘Documentary prose of Normal Mailer and magic world of Joan Rowling’ and V. Mildon’s work ‘All Russia is our garden. Russian literature as one book’. The novelty of the reviews is conditioned by the need to define the most significant phenomena in the literary process and show the relation between many authors in their philosophical and artistic understanding of life situations, ideological searches and art achievements.

Keywords: