Literary and Ideological Reflection of Siberian Literature in Nikolai Chuzhak’s (Nikolai F. Nasimovich’s) Literary Criticism in the Aspect of Marxist Aesthetics

Abstract

Nikolai Chuzhak’s (N. F. Nasimovich, 1876–1937) – a famous Marxist publicist – literary criticism is, at the first glance, already studied enough by theorists in bibliology and literature. However, the fragmentary nature of researches and lack of the profound scientific comprehension of his critical heritage specifics dictates the necessity to bring into the system the data about his publications in Siberian periodicals and collections issued when he stayed in Siberia and the Far East from 1908 to 1922, that being the purpose of the article.

Chuzhak's literary and ideological reflection on the history of Siberian philology began to reveal itself in the early period of his Siberian exile, when he was in ideological opposition to local criticism. However, gradual research and immersion into the Siberian context and endeavors to understand the specificity of this faraway land literature began to form the position of not only a “stranger” but also a “cultural mediator.” It became fundamental that N. Chuzhak comprehended Siberian literature within the Marxist theory, which set an imprint on the methodology and conceptual model of his critical texts.

Despite obvious tendentiousness of the main provisions, the critic’s undoubted merit was, as we see it, that for the first time he raised the question about the necessity of studying Siberian literature as a phenomenon of poetics. Chuzhak's creative work as the critic of Siberian literature, comprehended on a systemic level, represents a kind of a “metatext”, revealing both the evolution and stable typological features of different periods of his literary work.