Russian National Identity: Literary Folklore and Russian Self-Definition, 1760-1900

我的研究探讨了俄罗斯民族认同的形成，在漫长的世纪（c.1760-1900），通过俄罗斯文学民间传说的透镜-即以民间故事为风格的学术文学作品-，揭示文学民间传说如何不仅反映其作者的民族身份观念，而且有助于塑造这些观念，18世纪世纪末的一场身份危机引发了一场重新发现俄罗斯“失落”的民族性格的探索。政治运动（十二月党人和官方国籍），文化运动（斯拉夫人），社会运动（早期反西方化趋势）和文学运动（浪漫主义）主要将农村农民和下层社会阶级视为俄罗斯民族精神的堡垒。这些运动创造了一种从民间传说和习俗中汲取的新文学，以促进俄罗斯的道德，他们认为，精英们在一百年的西方化之后已经忘记了。这种新的文学-“文学民俗”-是至关重要的，我们的俄罗斯身份的理解。因此，俄罗斯文学民俗的演变及其与民族认同（再）发展的相互关系几乎没有得到批判性的研究，这也许是令人惊讶的。我的研究解决了奖学金中的这一差距。

My research investigates the formation of Russian national identity, during the long 19th century (c.1760-1900), through the lens of Russian literary folklore-viz. learned literary works styled as folktales-, revealing how literary folklore not only reflected its authors' notions of national identity, but helped shape these notions, through a helical cycle of reception & influence.An identity crisis in the late 18th century sparked a quest to re-discover Russia's 'lost' national character. Political movements (Decembrists & Official Nationality), cultural movements (Slavophiles), social movements (early anti-Westernisation trends) & literary movements (Romanticism) predominantly looked to rural peasantry & the lower social classes as the bastions of Russia's national spirit. These movements created a new literature drawn from folk lore & customs to promote the Russian morals which, they believed, the elite had forgotten after a hundred years of Westernisation. This new literature-'literary folklore'-is crucial to our understanding of Russian identity. It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that the evolution of Russian literary folklore & its interrelatedness with the (re)development of national identity has received almost no critical study. My research addresses this gap in the scholarship.