Jens Herlth - Böcker

This volume offers a view of modern Russian intellectual culture as shaped by the dynamic of conversions. The individual contributions examine a rich variety of personal conversions occurring in a culture in which the written word enjoyed a privileged status and, historically, was closely linked to the sacred. However, the essays presented go beyond the original meaning of conversion as a change of religious beliefs. They address shifts in style, aesthetic outlooks, and mindsets, political and ideological transfigurations as well as religious conversions in the true sense of the term.Whether at the level of culture, society or biography, the study of conversions opens the way to profound reflections about questions of identity, cultural ruptures, and continuity. The awareness of former conversions and the possible «convertibility» of one’s own ideological, spiritual or social stance has been among the central traits of Russian intellectual culture during the last two centuries.

Like all empires, the Soviet Empire was also based on the distinction centre–periphery. Although the Soviet Empire no longer exists, relationships between centres and peripheries still shape realities in the region. The book analyses the relevance of this distinction for the understanding of political, economic, and cultural realities in the post-Soviet space. Case studies provided by scholars from different countries of the former Soviet Union explore the potential of the distinction in historical as well as in economic and political perspectives

Iosif Brodskij (1940–1996) liefert mit seinem Gedichtzyklus Rimskie ėlegii die poetische Bilanz eines Rom-Aufenthalts und zugleich eine komplexe poetologische Auseinandersetzung mit den Traditionen des Schreibens in und über Rom. Die Studie macht die abwesend-präsenten Stimmen der dichterischen Vorläufer – von Properz, Tibull und Ovid über Goethe bis hin zu Mandel’štam – hörbar und entwickelt aus der Deutung des Rom-Zyklus einen Beitrag zur Poetik von Brodskijs dichterischem Gesamtwerk.

As a writer, critic, and philosopher, Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) left a lasting imprint on Polish culture. He absorbed virtually all topical intellectual trends of his time, adapting them for the needs of what he saw as his primary mission: the modernization of Polish culture. The essays of the volume reassess and contextualize Brzozowski's writings from a distinctly transnational vantage point. They shed light on often surprising and hitherto underrated affinities between Brzozowski and intellectual figures and movements in Eastern and Western Europe. Furthermore, they explore the presence of his ideas in twentieth-century century literary criticism and theory.