Economy of Narration and Identity Crisis: Russian Ethnographic Novel 1860-1890

本文提出的研究项目致力于将处于鼎盛时期(1860-1890)的俄罗斯民族志小说作为一种独立的、具有文学影响力的体裁进行索引，但系统的文献学处理仍然是欠缺的。计划中的研究的主要目标是俄罗斯民族志小说的跨学科联系诗意的概念，揭示并强调文化研究的视角。定义和描述这一体裁的第一个关键步骤将是它在文学史上的位置，以及它的产生和发展的话语语境。在这一部分中，应该评价民族志小说与19世纪俄罗斯民粹主义运动之间的生产性干扰，以及它的各种倾向，如斯拉夫主义、纳罗德尼克和无政府主义。这项研究主要要求对这一特定类型小说的主题、主题、独特的叙事技巧及其功能进行详细的分析。在这方面，重要的历史认识论发现将集中在该体裁的代表性作品中，融合了民族志和民俗学的诗性认识论技术。通过解开这一基本纽带，本研究将展示小说对俄罗斯民族志学派自身形成的反馈作用。对这一深远关联的研究成果，应当在认识论史学和人类学叙事学的视角下，编撰成一套假设。此外，建议的项目旨在阐述社会参与体裁的社会文化地位和影响，因此涉及对作者的重要智力和思想影响，以及俄罗斯民族志小说的传播和接受。语境分析应该表明，对农民问题的政治经济讨论，就像少数民族的文化融合因此得到反映一样，同时也受到所讨论的小说体裁的启发。

The herein proposed research project endeavours the task of indexing the Russian ethnographic novel in its prime (1860-1890) as an independent, literarily influential genre, as yet, a systematic philological processing is still amiss. The main objective of the planned study is the conception of a transdisciplinary linked poetic of the Russian ethnographic novel that unveils and stresses perspectives of cultural studies. A first crucial step in the definition and description of the genre will be its location in literary history and, moreover, the discursive contextualisation of its emergence and development. In this part, the productive interference between the ethnographic novel and the Russian populist movement of the 19th century and its diverse tendencies, like the Slavophiles, the Narodniks and the Anarchists, should be evaluated. The proposed research mainly demands a detailed analysis of the topics, subjects and distinctive narrative techniques of this specific type of novel and their functions. In this regard, the significant historical-epistemological finding will be focused that the representative works of the genre incorporate the poetic-epistemological techniques of ethnography and folkloristics. By unfolding this fundamental tie the study will show the feedback effects of the novels on the formation of the Russian ethnographic school itself. The research results of the investigation of this far-reaching correlation should be compiled into a set of assumptions within the approach of epistemological history and anthropological narratology. Furthermore the suggested project aims at the exposition of the sociocultural positions and effects of the socially engaged genre and therefore deals with the crucial intellectual and ideological influences on the authors, as well as with the distribution and reception of the Russian ethnographic novel. The contextual analyses shall demonstrate that the political-economic discussions of the peasant question, just as the cultural integration of ethnic minorities are consequently reflected and at the same time inspired by the discussed novel genre.