The interpretation of V. Bryusov's novellas by Chinese critics

Khu Yingnan ORCID: 0009-0004-7938-068X Postgraduate student; Department of Russian Language and Literature; Far Eastern Federal University 690922, Russia, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, Russian settlement, Ajax 10, sq. 8 1758239549@qq.com

The acquaintance of Chinese readers and critics with the works of V. Bryusov dates back to the 1920s According to the publication periods of the novels We consider it advisable to consider the study of Bryusov's works in China within the framework of two periods: early criticism (1920-1940's) and modern criticism (1990s-up to the present).

The first impression of readers and critics about Bryusov in China was greatly influenced by the international situation and domestic politics of the early twentieth century. In 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, China severed relations with the United States, Great Britain and other Western countries due to contradictions over the sovereignty of the Chinese peninsula of Shandong. The resolution of the Paris Peace Conference that the territories occupied by Germany on the Shandong Peninsula of China were ceded to Japan caused great indignation among the Chinese people, and in order to force the Chinese delegation to refuse to sign the treaty, the "May 4 Movement" broke out in the country. The Chinese intelligentsia sought to enlighten the masses by introducing new ideas and culture. In July of the same year, the USSR published the "Appeal of the Government of the RSFSR to the Chinese People and the Governments of Southern and Northern China" ^[1], in which it declared the renunciation of all privileges in China. The Chinese public appreciated this act of the Soviet government. Russian Russian political support for China made the Chinese intelligentsia feel close to Russian culture and literature, so in the early 1920s, the Chinese educated part of society sought to translate literary works by Russian writers and present them to the public. In September 1921, a special section "Studies of Russian Literature" was created in the magazine "Monthly of Prose" ("Xiaosho Yuebao"), an important literary magazine of the time. According to available data, the acquaintance of Chinese readers with Bryusov's works began in 192-1, in the magazine "Monthly of Prose: Research of Russian literature" An article by Mao Dun was published (kit. 茅盾; real name: Shen Yanbing, whale. 沈雁冰; literary pseudonym: Shen Yu, whale. 沈余. Currently, the name "Mao Dun" is uniformly used in Chinese literary criticism, so this article is also signed with the name "Mao Dun") "Thirty Russian writers of the period of modern history." Mao Dun described Bryusov's works as indifferent short stories about gods and devils. "Bryusov's prose is also objective and mysterious; he prefers ancient events as material for his works, especially legends about miracles" ^{[2, p. 109]}. Although Mao Dun did not conduct an in-depth analysis of Bryusov's works in his article, he introduced Chinese readers to the writer's work. In 1924 The news of the writer's death came to China, and Tsung Yu (Chinese: 丛予) After learning about this, he published articles in the publications "Monthly of Prose" and "Oriental Magazine" ("Dongfang zazhi") in honor of the great symbolist writer. However, in these two articles, Tsung Yu focused on Bryusov's poetic works.

In 1930, the novella "In the Mirror", translated by Yu Zhiyu, was published in the Monthly Prose magazine, volume 21, No. 12. This was the first translation of Bryusov's novels in China, and it was made not from Russian, but from English. After the translation, a note was written by Yu Zhiyu, in which the translator introduced readers to Bryusov's philosophical views on dualism and argued that the writer's ideas are reflected in his novels, one of which is "In the Mirror." According to Yu Zhiyu, "the mirrors in the novel are also the world... the front and back sides of the mirror are like day and night, dream and reality, reality and unreality" ^{[3, p. 1766]}. For the first time, Chinese scientists analyze Bryusov's novels from the point of view of philosophical ideas of symbolism. In 1931, the novel "Marble Head" by Bryusov, translated by Yu Zhiyu, was published in the magazine "Monthly of Creativity" ("Chuangzuo Yuekan", "创作月刊").

In the 1920s, under the influence of the "May 4 Movement", a large number of Russian literary works were translated in China. Against this background, translations of V. Bryusov's short stories in China appeared relatively late and were few in number, which did not correspond to his own literary status. We believe that the reason for this lies mainly in the fact that the literature of that time was strongly influenced by political and social factors. At that time, the main purpose of Chinese translations of foreign works was to educate the nation through foreign literature. Works that reveal the weaknesses of the social system and criticize social realities have received more attention than works of symbolism. For example, at that time, the realistic works of Anton Chekhov were translated more often, and the themes of his works were more attractive to the Chinese intelligentsia of that time. "Anton Chekhov depicts the simple life of ordinary people, their happiness and adversity, joy and sorrow, which are close to the Chinese people. Chekhov's intellectuals remind the Chinese intelligentsia of their own destiny with their disappointments and dreams" ^{[4, p. 171]}. There are exceptions: although the works of the symbolist writer Sologub are not as socially critical as those of realist writers, his works have been translated into Chinese since the beginning of the 20th century, and the number of translations of his prose works in China over the same period is greater than Bryusov's translations. This was due to the unique view of death shown in his works, which interested literary critics of the time.

The crisis of national decline at the beginning of the century led to the spread of decadence, which forced the educated part of society at that time to think about life and death. "In the 1920s, Chinese society was grappling with the crisis of its internal structure and external political and economic pressure... In order to counter the traditional model of a happy ending and the literature of "concealment" and "deception," the new youth during the fourth of May boldly used the symbolism of death that had recently come from foreign literature and its techniques to reveal the dark side of society, thus creating a series of tragic works about death" ^{[5, p. 23]}. In this regard, V. Bryusov's work did not meet the demands of the time. Apart from the two above-mentioned translations and the re-translation of the novella "The Marble Head" from 1932, there were no other translations.

In 1931, the article "Critical Biography of V. Bryusov" was published in the Women's Magazine (Funyu Zazhi). Mao Dun (under the pseudonym: Shen Yu, kit. 沈余). Mao Dun believes that Bryusov's poems are formally different from his prose works and should be considered separately. "Bryusov's poems have their own special style in form, which can be recognized even if you take excerpts from them and mix them with other works, but his prose can easily be mistaken for someone else's works, they do not have a specific style and imitate the style of other people or a certain era" ^{[6, p. 147]}. It is obvious that during this period Mao Dun rated Bryusov's poems higher than his short stories. In the article, Mao Dun analyzed the concept of symbolism in Bryusov's works. He noted that "the works Bryusov's works include three periods – the past, present and future, and mix two worlds – the real and the unreal" ^{[6, p. 147]}. The real world and the unreal world represent the symbolist concepts of two worlds, which are reflected in Bryusov's novels. "Two worlds are becoming the main world-modeling principles of Bryusov's short stories" ^{[7, p. 11]}. According to Mao Dun, the mirrors in the novel "In the Mirror" symbolize "social criticism." A "mirror person" is the "I" in the perception of other people who subject "me" to social criticism. And because of the overwhelming power of "social criticism," people in the real world are unable to distinguish the "real" from the "unreal," and so in the real world they are replaced by a "mirror man." Mao Dun analyzes Boryusov's symbolist novel from the point of view of social criticism, showing that literary criticism of that time was strongly influenced by society.

Of the early Chinese studies, Mao Dun's criticism is the most comprehensive and in-depth analysis of V. Bryusov's works. Unfortunately, the study of Bryusov's prose did not become popular, but, on the contrary, gradually disappeared. The series of military operations in China in the 1930s and 1940s had a serious impact on the development of literature. At the same time, Silver Age literature was banned in the Soviet Union, and little of it made its way to China. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China (since 1949) China actively adopted the experience of the Soviet Union and became closer to it ideologically, so its attitude to the works of the Silver Age was the same as in the Soviet Union. In the late 1950s, Soviet literature was largely banned in China due to the Soviet-Chinese split (the political conflict between the PRC and the USSR, which lasted from the late 1950s to the late 1980s). For these reasons, the distribution of Bryusov's works in China halted in the middle of the 20th century, and the situation it changed only by the mid-1980s.

Russian Russian Literature In the second half of the 1980s, a number of works devoted to Soviet literature were published, such as The History of Russian Literature, which laid the foundation for the subsequent study of Russian literature in China. Russian Russian researchers began to pay more attention to the works of Russian symbolist writers in the 1990s with the renewed interest in Symbolist prose, revealing another little-known aspect of Russian literature.

In addition, Bryusov's prose works in China have received new interpretations due to the development of a New Critical Theory in Chinese literary criticism ("New Criticism" is a trend in literary criticism of the mid–20th century, a kind of formal method in literary criticism). At the beginning of the 20th century, the main thing in the work was not the aesthetic value of the story, but its practical benefits. Literature assumed the task of promoting national liberation and awakening self-awareness. "From the very beginning, modern Chinese literature has been focused on realizing the need to transform life and society, the thematic concept of ideological enlightenment has given literature a strong rational and critical coloring, and the consistent emergence of a number of literary movements has further strengthened the revolutionary and politicized nature of thematic works" ^{[8, p. 58]}. The reflection of the tragic situation of people from the lower strata of society and the disclosure of social problems were important themes of prose during this period. In the 1940s and 1950s, literature was considered to serve politics in China, which led to the emergence of the expression "literary instrumentalism." Under the influence of "literary instrumentalism", literary criticism of this period also mainly focused on political and social issues of great practical importance. In the 1980s, there was a discussion in the literary world about the relationship between literature and society, and some scholars opposed "literary instrumentalism", believing that literature should not serve any political goals, and literary criticism should focus on the inner composition of the work, that is, pay attention to the aesthetic structure, the way of narration. and creative techniques of a literary work. At that time, the theories and methods of New Criticism played a progressive role in solving the problem of literary discourse about whether literature should serve as a tool for achieving political goals. "The emphasis of the New Criticism on textual research and in-depth study of texts expanded the research horizons of Chinese critics and provided a theoretical framework and methodology for a new approach in Chinese literary criticism" ^{[9, p. 65]}. The use of critical views and methods of the theory of New Criticism increased the scientific judgments about the inner artistic value of works and at the same time created the conditions for rethinking the assessments of Bryusov's short stories in the 1990s.

Modern Chinese scholars studying Bryusov's novels mainly focus on describing "unusual situations," the poetic principles of symbolism, and the dystopian theme of his works. In the last two years, new areas of research have begun to appear, such as the analysis of descriptions of disasters, women's consciousness in the writer's works, as well as comparative studies.

Modern Chinese scholars believe that Bryusov's novels belong to the "narratives of positions" (Chinese: 情境小)). The term "position narratives" refers to stories that primarily use "positions" as a narrative device to tell the course of events. The main feature of "situation stories" is that the story pays more attention to the representation of events, as well as the feelings and emotional changes of the characters in some special situations. Compared to traditional novels, "narratives of situations" do not pay attention to the portrayal of characters. "The "Position Stories" do not aim to characterize the characters, nor do they provide detailed descriptions of the social and realistic motives or psychological motivations of their words and deeds... Peculiar, fantastic, abnormal emotions, feelings, stream of consciousness and transformations become the main theme that the writer must present" ^{[10, p. 181]}. In "situation stories," the writer also does not have to explain to the reader why these unusual situations arise.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in early studies of Bryusov's work, the "stories of positions" were not studied, but after Bryusov's works were reinterpreted, critics began to pay attention to the "positions" in his novels. Early acquaintance of Chinese readers with Bryusov's works began in the 1920s. It was during this period that the center of narrative structure in Chinese short stories shifted from plot-oriented traditional prose to character-oriented. In his monograph "The Change of Narrative Patterns in Chinese Prose", scholar Chen Pingyuan collected statistical data on the number of stories published in major newspapers and magazines from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1927, in accordance with the main centers of narrative structure in the works. Before 1917, very few works were published in which character occupies a central place in the narrative, they accounted for only one percent of the total number. Since 1917, this figure has been gradually increasing. In the period from 1923 to 1927, the share of works of fiction published in several major magazines, the focus of which was the character of the characters, increased by 35 percent compared with the period before 1917 ^{[11, p. 10]}. These data indicate the strengthening of the ideology of liberation of the personality and consciousness of the subject after the "May 4 Movement". During the early spread of Bryusov's works in China, Chinese prose was influenced by the "New Culture Movement," and the awakening of self-awareness forced writers to focus mainly on characterization. "The emergence of the ideology of "human liberation" during the Fourth of May led to the fact that writers drew attention to the central role of the characters' character in the development of historical events, and the structural center of the novel shifted to character description, that is, to the description of character development" [1 2, p. 565]. Changes in the main component of prose also influenced the direction of literary criticism of that time, so that in the early years Bryusov's works were not analyzed from the point of view of "narratives of positions".

But in the subsequent period, in the development of modern Chinese fiction, there was a historical tendency to deepen the description of the inner world of characters. "We can detect a gradual tendency towards the internal transformation of characters in the stories of the new period" (The new period refers to the period after 1977) ^{[8, p. 1 29]}. And "situation stories" are also characterized by the fact that they pay special attention to the inner world of the characters. "The stories of the situations are more interested in the feelings and processes of changes in the consciousness of the characters than in their external characteristics" ^{[13, p. 93]}. Therefore, in the 1990s, Chinese critics began to highlight the features of Bryusov's "narratives of positions" in their research.

In China, Zhou Qichao was the first scientist to apply the term "narratives of positions" to the study of Bryusov's works. This idea is taken from the statement of A. Blok. Even during Bryusov's publication of the cycle of short stories "The Earth's Axis," the Russian writer A. Blok remarked: "...Bryusov's stories do not belong to “character stories”, where “all the author's attention is focused on exceptional characters” ..., but to “position stories”, where “the author's attention is focused on the exclusivity of the event", and “the characters are important not in themselves, but only to the extent that they are captured by the main action"" ^[14]. In the article "Review of the "stories of the positions" of the Symbolists – the art of fiction by the poet Bryusov" ("Foreign Literary Studies", 1993, No. 1), Zhou Qichao quoted The block. However, Zhou Qichao, relying on the ideas of the Russian writer, additionally noted that "the "positions" depicted in Bryusov's works are basically "positions in which the mind and emotions are in a crisis, acute or "extraordinary" state" ^{[15, p. 196]}. The "positions" mentioned by Zhou Qichao are expressed in Bryusov's works as a unique psychological state of a person at the intersection of sleep and waking, on the border of this world and the other. He believes that Bryusov's stories, such as "In the Mirror," "Now that I'm Awake..." and "The Marble Head," although they differ in plot, they all show the extraordinary psychological states of the characters when fantasy and reality penetrate each other. Zhou Qichao considered the second cycle of Bryusov's novellas "Nights and Days" to be "stories of situations" as well. According to Zhou Qichao, what is expressed in Bryusov's works is "a 'peculiar state' of lust for the inner world of a modern woman, which was subject to distortion and suppression, and therefore presented in an extraordinary state" ^{[16, p. 6]}. In the center of the narrative in the works presented in this cycle, however, is not the character as such.

In 2003, Zhou Qichao continued to review the "narratives of the provisions" in his monograph "A Study of Russian Literature of the Silver Age". According to Zhou Qichao, in the process of describing "acute or extraordinary situations," Bryusov often uses the "author's mask" technique. This technique not only expands the creative freedom of the author in the narrative, but also fills the work with a deep symbolic meaning. In his research Zhou Qichao quoted Bryusov: "It seemed necessary to me, in most cases, to let someone else speak for himself: an Italian short story writer of the XVI century, a feuilletonist of future centuries, a patient of a psychiatric hospital..." ^{[17, p. 9]}. Zhou Qichao believes that the technique of "letting others speak for themselves" allows Bryusov to put more layers of symbolic meaning into the works. In the cycle of short stories Bryusov uses the subheadings "Archive", "Notes", "Bulletin", "Manuscript". An example is the short story "The Republic of the Southern Cross", in which the whole story is told in the form of a news report. According to Zhou Qichao, in the novel "The Republic of the Southern Cross" There are two semantic layers: "The novel foreshadows or hints at the possible direction of the development of the most extraordinary society in the conditions of the high-tech civilization of the modern bourgeoisie; secondly, the work involves Bryusov's consideration of a possible "unusual psychological situation" in the course of the historical development of mankind" ^{[10, p. 175]}. An "unusual psychological situation" is a condition in which the "psyche" is distorted by external social pressure.

According to the critic, the novel reflects Bryusov's socio-political views at that time.: "Bryusov believes in the rightness and inevitability of this popular uprising against tsarism... but at the same time, the poet fears that a popular uprising could lead to complete destruction" ^{[10, p. 176]}.

In order to present "unusual or extraordinary situations," Bryusov usually described various disaster plots in his works, depicting the psychological state of people faced with devastating disasters. According to Zhou Qichao, the cause of the disaster was not what Bryusov was trying to show.: "The narration of this story is intended to distract attention from the causes of the disaster and convey the feeling of falling into the abyss that engulfed the nation" ^{[10, p. 175]}. The focus is on disorderly paintings describing the catastrophic events taking place in the Republic of the Southern Cross and the internal changes of people.

Chinese scientists also studied Bryusov's works written in the genre of dystopia. "Dystopia was formed in the process of interaction with the utopian tradition, Judeo-Christian eschatology, the ideas of the enlighteners and romantics, and incorporated elements of the traditional (peasant) worldview. This genre is based on an evolutionist vision of human history: culture was seen as developing to a certain level of spirituality and civilization, and then degraded" [1 8, p. 115]. In 2025, Li Chunlin published the article "The Republic of the Southern Cross: the first dystopian story of the 20th century." In his research, Li Chunlin analyzes the work mainly from the point of view of Bryusov's creative idea, as well as the content. He believes that the main purpose of the novel is "to reveal the dystopia and the inevitability of the collapse of a utopian state" [1-9, p. 41]. Li Chunlin analyzes the utopia depicted in this novel from four points of view: political, economic, cultural and social, and also analyzes the causes of the collapse of a utopian society – the suppression of human individuality. In the article, the critic also notes the warning inherent, in his opinion, in the work: "It is necessary to build a free, democratic and egalitarian society in which the human personality can fully develop" [1-9, p. 45]. The manifestation of individuality and the desire for freedom are essential human qualities, and a utopian society that destroys people's individuality is contrary to human nature.

In 2018, Li Xinhua (Chinese) The article "Reflections on human Alienation in early dystopian short stories" examines the theme of alienation in Bryusov's dystopian novels. The article notes that in a number of early (late 19th – early 20th century) dystopian novels there are themes reflecting and criticizing modernity. This theme is expressed in Bryusov's "Republic of the Southern Cross" as the alienation of man as a result of modern Western politics. He claims that in his work Bryusov "describes the alienation of a person in a state of "madness" under totalitarian rule" ^{[20, p. 112]}.

The views of Chinese scientists on the study of Bryusov's utopian novels, in our opinion, generally coincide with the opinion of Russian researchers: under the absolute control of the regime, the psychological balance of a person was disrupted, which led to a surge of uncontrollable and contradictory reactions. For example, A.E. Anufriev notes that in the Republic of the Southern Cross, "the writer showed how in a super-independent state, total regulation turned into total anarchy and led to the self-destruction of the population" ^[21]. We believe that the convergence of points of view is due to the fact that the narrative form of Bryusov's dystopian novels is itself close to the characteristics of Chinese utopian works, which makes the perception of his work in Chinese literary criticism easier. Most Chinese dystopias imitate the narrative form of a utopian work: "at the beginning, the work describes the origins of a utopian society, then objectively describes the transformation of this society from ideal to ugly, which serves the purpose of contrasting the reality of utopia and thinking about society" ^{[22, p. 5]}. The first part of the Republic of the Southern Cross is devoted to the description of a highly developed and harmonious society in a country that seems to be an ideal utopian world. However, after the outbreak of the "disease of contradiction", the narrative turns into a description of a picture of chaos and catastrophe. This way of storytelling is similar to Chinese dystopian fiction.

The difference between the Chinese and Russian assessments is that in his research Li Chunlin focuses on the warning value of Bryusov's utopian novels. The reasons for this are inseparable from the creative features of Chinese dystopian works. The creation of Chinese dystopian works follows from the Chinese literary tradition of drawing lessons from history. Most of the Chinese utopian prose is based on historical events from the middle of the 20th century to the period of the "policy of reform and openness" (the program of economic reforms undertaken in the PRC in 1978). During this period, China made several attempts to build socialism, for example, by organizing "people's communes" (an industrial and administrative unit of the PRC), but in the end, they were unsuccessful. There are a large number of dystopian works that take this period of social history as a basis, criticizing and rethinking utopia, which has become history itself. Thus, there is also reflection in Li Chunlin's research, and he pays great attention to the warning in the significance of Bryusov's works.

It is obvious that until 2020, the study of Bryusov's novels focused mainly on two aspects – "stories of the situation" and dystopias, but in recent years, new aspects have emerged in the study of Bryusov's works.

In 2023, Sun Xue (kit. 孙雪) published an article "On the description of the catastrophe in the works of V. Bryusov" (Philology, 202 3, No. 1), in which she analyzed the epidemic in the story "The Republic of the Southern Cross" and the scientific and technical catastrophe in the story "The Rise of the Machines". In her opinion, Bryusov seeks to show the struggle of people and suffering in the face of disasters. In the article, Sun Xue links the epidemic in the "Republic of the Southern Cross" with a new type of coronavirus, arguing that "most of the catastrophes in Bryusov's works are fictional, imaginary disasters based on his reflections on the real world, which are mixed with the author's ideas about the future fate of humanity" ^{[23, p. 109]}. At the same time, Sun Xue notes: "Bryusov's global vision was reflected not only in his literary works, but also in the way he understood the problem of human development, that is, in the concept of the "Community of the Common Destiny of Mankind" (China's foreign policy concept) ^{[23, p. 106]}. These are examples of how Chinese critics connect Bryusov's novels with the realities of modern society, giving Bryusov's works a new interpretation, taking into account the peculiarities of the time.

In 2023 Wu Qifan published an article titled "Three common themes in the works of V. Bryusov and F. Dostoevsky" (Russian Literature and Art, 2023, No. 2), in which the researcher examines three aspects of Bryusov's continuation of Dostoevsky's creative themes: "duality", "underground man", "dystopia". According to Wu Tsifan, "the stories of the situation"Bryusov's works were the result of the author's reception of Dostoevsky's "Double" in his work. However, in order to reflect the poetic nature of the "stories of the situation", Bryusov weakened the environmental factors influencing the main character's thinking and strengthened the description of the subjective world of the hero's consciousness. The change in the essence of the struggle between the "I" and the "double", the confrontation of the true and false "I" is transformed into doubt and introspection of one's own true "I" ^{[24, p. 128]}. Such a mental conflict and discord of the characters is found in many of Bryusov's stories and is a common way used by the writer to express the position of the characters who are on the verge between the real world and the unreal. In Bryusov's works, "people who find themselves in difficult life circumstances are prone to pathological manifestations of schizophrenia due to their inner duality, and in their minds the world created by dreams, hallucinations and imagination is a real 'fact'..." ^{[24, p. 127]}. Using the example of Bryusov's work "In the Mirror: From the Archive of a Psychiatrist," Tsifan argues that the positions of the "I" and the "mirror man" presented by the author in the finale have changed places, and the real world and the "mirror world" have "turned over." This inversion is also a reflection of the duality. The mirror in Bryusov's novel serves as a way between two worlds. "A dream, a memory, a mirror image is a certain line that the hero overcomes in order to penetrate into otherness" ^{[25, p. 111]}.

Wu Qifan analyzes the two authors' reflections on reason, lust, and primitive human instincts, studying the "underground man" in the novella "Now That I'm Awake..." Bryusov and Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" (1864). In the article, the scientist also pointed out that the dystopian novel "The Republic of the Southern Cross" by Bryusov has similarities with the story "The Dream of a Funny Man" (1877) by F. Dostoevsky. This point of view is based on the research of Russian critics. In the article, Wu Tsifan quoted a Russian critic: "Bryusov's hero has much in common with Dostoevsky's "underground man," who opposes his individualistic self, his unlimited self-will, and even his wild whim to any reasonable social ideal" ^{[26, p. 232]}. Using the example of the Republic of the Southern Cross, the researcher argues that the root of conflict in the work is the excessive suppression of free will.

In 2023, a new analysis of the image of a woman in the novel "Under the Old Bridge" appeared in the study of Bryusov's novels in China. In the article "The study of female consciousness in Bryusov's story"Under the old Bridge"" Jiang Siyu analyzes the image of the main character Maria and her femininity in five aspects. According to the researcher, Maria is one of the few positive images of women in Bryusov's works. "She has a sense of feminine independence, a clear sense of gender, a sense of being in front of a besieged fortress in the face of marriage, a sense of flight in pursuit of freedom and equality, and a strong sense of independence..." ^{[27, p. 9]}. The researcher called Maria's mindset, which does not want to marry and seeks to escape from the palace, "the mind of a besieged fortress" – a term taken from the work of the Chinese writer Qian Zhongshu (Chinese: 钱锺书) "The Besieged Fortress" ("围城"): "Marriage is like a besieged fortress: those outside want to enter, those inside want to leave" (French proverb that opens Qian Zhongshu's famous novel "The Besieged Fortress") ^[28]. Criticism offered a new interpretation to the characters of Bryusov's works, based on interaction with Chinese literature.

Based on the conducted research, we can conclude that the study of Bryusov's novels in China can be divided into two stages. Early study of Bryusov's works in China was largely due to the fascination of the Chinese educated part of society with translations of Russian literature during the "May 4 Movement". The first critics of Bryusov's novels focused on the philosophical concept of the writer's symbolism. However, due to the ban of Bryusov's works in Russia and the Soviet-Chinese split, the study of Bryusov's novels in China did not develop in the middle of the 20th century. It was only in the early 1990s that Bryusov's novels again attracted the attention of Chinese critics. Thanks to the development of the theory of literary criticism and the transformation of the literary function, new interpretations of the study of Bryusov's works have appeared. In modern critical studies of Bryusov's novels, views on "narratives of the situation" and "dystopia" initially prevailed. In recent years, new directions have emerged, such as the description of the catastrophe and the interpretation of women's consciousness. The study of V. Bryusov's novels is also characterized by Chinese specifics. According to Chinese critics, the philosophical and dialectical thinking embedded in the works of V. Bryusov remains relevant in modern society, is characterized by deep reflection and is directed towards the future.