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

我的研究通过俄罗斯文学民俗学的视角，考察了漫长的19世纪(公元1760-1900)俄罗斯民族认同的形成。学术文学作品风格为民间故事-揭示了文学民俗如何不仅反映了作者的民族认同感，而且通过接受和影响的螺旋式循环帮助塑造了这些观念。18世纪末的一场认同危机引发了重新发现俄罗斯“失落的”民族性的追求。政治运动(清教徒和官方国籍)、文化运动(亲斯拉夫人)、社会运动(早期的反西化运动)和文学运动(浪漫主义)主要将农村农民和下层社会阶层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，以弘扬他们认为精英们在一百年的西化后已经忘记的俄罗斯道德。这种新的文学作品--“文学民俗”--对于我们理解俄罗斯人的身份至关重要。因此，也许令人惊讶的是，俄罗斯文学民俗的演变及其与国家认同(重新)发展的相互关系几乎没有得到批判性的研究。我的研究解决了学术上的这一差距。

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.