“Landmarks” of D. S. Mirsky in the historical space of Russian literature

Abstract

The aim of the research is to determine the specifics of D. S. Mirsky’s speech worldview, the metaphorical style of his scientific thinking, which are relevant and insufficiently studied aspects of his creative heritage. The paper analyses the literary discourse of D. S. Mirsky, in particular, catalogues the techniques of stylistic summarisations and their author’s individual terminological expression using the material of “A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1925” in the context of methodological searches of criticism of the Russian émigré community. The author emphasises the genre originality of the scientific work, which reflected the following oppositions: general/separate, original/translated, personal/nonpersonal, aesthetic/sociological. The scientific novelty of the concept lies in identifying the functions of Mirsky’s narrative techniques and critical optics, combining micro- and macropoetic worlds, a view of Russian literature from the outside and from within the national tradition. The research findings showed how, through the techniques of stylistic compression, metaphorical imagery and narrative reduction, the author’s individual vision of the artistic ontology and conceptology of Russian literature, its vice versa and modus vivendi, is formed and formulated by Mirsky.