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

• Applicant: Dr. Konstantin Kaminskij
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 312995612

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.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants