2024 Vol. 15 №4

Any system of terminology serves as a map of the field within which it is employed. The history of terminology, as an integral component of intellectual history, offers valuable in­sights for methodological reflection. It often prompts a reevaluation of specific issues by re­turning to their origins and rekindling potential implications and developments that were set aside in the course of the subsequent evolution of the discipline. This paper focuses on several terms that emerged during the formative decades of Russian verse theory (1910s and 1920s). These include: ritmicheskii kursiv [rhythmic italics], a term coined by Mikhail Shtokmar, which became common after the works of Kiril Taranovsky and Mikhail Gasparov; slo­vorazdel [word boundary], a term coined by Osip Brik, which has lost its association with Formalist terminology in modern-day use; and, eventually, dol’nik [strict accentual verse], one of the most debated concepts in Russian verse studies (the difference between this concept and the related but defunct concept of pauznik [pause-based verse] is also discussed). The concluding section of the article is devoted to the history of the overarching term for verse studies, stikhovedenie (a calque of the German Verslehre). The study of versification ter­minology allows us to more effectively develop modern verse theory, which dates back in many respects to the polemics between the Russian Formalists and the Symbolists.

The core idea of formalism is that literature is not merely a function of psychology or so­cial theory and cannot be explained using the tools of these sciences. One could say that poet­ics is almost the only philological subdiscipline that has managed to preserve the fundamental idea of formalism, explaining poetic facts in terms of poetics itself, rather than through eco­nomic, sociological, or psychological means. This is precisely the approach taken by Mikhail Gasparov in his article on the history of Russian rhyme, where, without resorting to reduc­tionism, he constructs his concept of cultural history as a sequence of crises and their resolu­tions. Maxim Shapir, in his well-known work on the evolution of the Russian iambic tetrame­ter, specifically highlights the unusual method he employs—the explanation of a poetic fact through historically documented and socially significant events. Poetics, more than any other branch of literary studies, maintains its hermetic nature, which presupposes the explanation of literary data through literary circumstances. The situation in which literature finds itself having to defend its autonomy from other sciences is reminiscent of the position once faced by sociology and linguistics, where Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Saussure fought for their separation from psychology. In recent times, Franco Moretti has attempted to mimic the methodology of formalists, though he still advocates the stance of a methodologically opposed party, which assumes that literary facts can be explained using the logic of social sciences.

The present stage of verse studies is marked by a rekindling of interest in the theoretical approaches of the 1920s and 1930s that emerged in the milieu close to the Russian ‘formal school’. In this respect, one of the most significant figures is Georgii Shengeli (1894—1956), who is known primarily as one of the most insightful researchers of verse theory and Russian non-classical metrics. Less attention has been paid to Shengeli’s own poetic experiments, which have remained in the shadow of his work in verse theory, translation and publishing. This study analyses, against the backdrop of Shengeli’s concept of ‘leimic verse’, his experi­ments in the domain of tonic metrics, including numerous examples of classical dolnik, deriv­atives of antique logaoedic verse, and rarer types of dolnik on disyllabic base. Shengeli’s cor­pus of tonic verse demonstrates an affinity for the classical and slightly loosened dolnik: most of his ‘leimic’ texts have lines of regular three-syllable meters, variable anacrusa is not un­common, and there are isolated extensions. This repertoire is close both to the metrics of the younger Acmeists (especially Georgy Ivanov and Georgy Adamovich) and to the metrics of the poets of the Maximilian Voloshin circle (primarily Sofia Parnok).

One of the first Russian-language works aimed at creating a general theory of verse was Mikhail Malishevskii’s short book “Metrotonics” (1925), which offered a common theoretical frame for the whole structure of metrics. Later, some of Malishevskii’s ideas were developed by Aleksei Kviatkovskii, who proposed a unified treatment of classical and non-classical verse. Theoretics of the ‘Russian method’ in the theory of verse considered these theories unverifia­ble, although a closer analysis of them allows us to show that they were precursors of modern metric typology. The present article explores Malishevskii’s theoretical views both in the con­text of theory of verse of the Russian 1920s and in the broader context of ‘tactometric’ theory, which before Malishevskii was represented primarily by the works of Aleksei Kubarev. It shows the development of ‘tactometric’ theory from Kubarev to Malishevskii and how it fits into metric typology, a subdiscipline that developed later and whose program was first pro­posed in the works of Roman Jakobson and John Lotz. The article concludes with a formal analysis of the poetic legacy of Malishevskii, who was active not only as a theorist but also as a poet. His oeuvres in poetry are examined against the background of his views on metrics, which, in fact, are hardly applicable to the structures of his own poems, which are much more traditional than his theoretical frame.

This paper addresses general issues in the study of Russian folk verse. A critical exami­nation of the major theories related to this topic highlights their significance in the history of Russian versification. The unique characteristics of folk verse, which exist in an oral-musical form, necessitate the development of specialized methods for its analysis. While traditional studies of versification offer a variety of methods and resources for analysing different forms of literary verse, they often fall short when applied to folklore verse. A flexible approach to the study of folk poetry is essential, given the diversity of folklore forms. In addition to classical folk accentual verse, many genres adhere to the principles of syllabic-accentual versification. Methods for analysing syllabic texts from other Slavic cultures may also be relevant. Each genre must be contextualized within its historical framework; thus, folklore requires a differ­entiated analytical approach. Furthermore, the degree of convergence with musicology can vary: in verse linguistics, traditional versification methods may often suffice. The approach based on counting beats holds particular promise, as it relates to the concepts of isochronic metrics, which remain underexplored in the field of Russian folk versification.

The article presents a historical and scientific analysis of the oral presentations and other works that criticized Boris Eikhenbaum’s “Melodics of Verse” and Viktor Zhirmunsky’s “Rhyme, Its History and Theory” from the perspective of Moscow formalism. The overview relies on unknown materials, which can thus be introduced into scholarly discourse. It refers to the presentations made by the philologist and philosopher Maksim Kœnigsberg and the literary scholar Mikhail Shtokmar, a student of Boris Yarkho at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences. In addition, the data from the newly discovered article by Maxim Kœnigsberg, “Compound Rhymes in the Lyrics of Innokentii Annenskii” (1924), is explored. The theses of Kœnigsberg’s exposé are published for the first time, with notes. The aim of the article is to reveal the polemical layer in the works of Moscow formalists. This is achieved by identifying key positions in the analysed texts, by their historical commentary, mutual comparison, and the discovery of authors’ logic. The results of the research include the publication of archival materials and their interpretation in the context of internal formalistic polemics. New materi­als reveal that Zhirmunsky allowed Kœnigsberg to develop his own theory of verse with an orientation towards semantics; whereas Shtokmar, on the contrary, rejected an important part in Zhirmunsky’s rhyme theory. The interrelation between different branches of the Russian formalism become clearer.

The spread of new poetic meters in the works of both older and younger generation of symbolists inevitably led to attempts at their scientific comprehension and description. This paper demonstrates that in writings on Russian verse, starting with Andrei Bely's “Symbol­ism”, the concepts of ‘dolnik/pauznik’ have been consistently analysed in comparison with German tonic verse in general and Heine's poetry in particular. The theoretical interest in ‘dolnik’ was fueled not only by the prevailing poetic processes but also by new translation experiments, primarily the equirhythmic translations of Heine by Alexander Blok, published in his collection “Night Hours” (1911). The formal similarities between Russian and German ‘dolnik’ prompted scholars to develop comparative metrics and theories of tonic verse, while the rhythmic differences led to the refinement of concepts related to rhythm and meter in non-syllabic verse, as well as the establishment of ideas concerning formal and functional equiva­lence of metric forms in poetic translation. In addition to scientific discussions from the 1910s—1930s, the paper addresses the rhythmic strategies employed in Russian translations of Heine’s three-ictic dolnik of the early decades of the 20th century by Alexander Blok, Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Zorgenfrei, Evgenya Knipovich, and Vera Arens. The equirhythmic tradi­tion established by Blok in translating Heine’s verse is contrasted with Tynianov's functional approach. This study deepens the understanding of the connections between symbolist and formalist poetics, as well as between symbolist translation and the so-called philological trans­lation of the 1920s and 1930s.