Research at the School of Philology

The projects aim to accumulate the best new research practices in human sciences related to language and literature by combining Russian academic experience with recent papers by international authors, which include, primarily, research teams from Paris-Sorbonne University, the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University (Berlin), the University of Helsinki, and the University of Tartu who actively cooperate with the School’s philologists and linguists. One of the primary interdisciplinary research problems which philologists and linguists work on together is the study of change in cultural, linguistic conflicts and contacts, new forms of interaction in the intellectual sphere and in culture, as well as systemic transformations that take place in times of change. Using the indicators of language and communication we can analyze the extent and trajectories of this change.

Key projects underway

1. The Imperial situation, national imagination, and Russian literature: representations of ethnicity in 19^th-century Russian culture and literature

Alexey Vdovin, Maya Kucherskaya, Elena Penskaya and others.

As part of this project, in 2015-2016, the HSE Academic Fund supported Alexey Vdovin’s project ‘The birth of the Russian muzhik: the representation of peasants in the Russian prose’, and Maya Kucherskaya’s project ‘N.S. Leskov’s short prose’.

2. Foreign writers and Soviet literature: translations, reception, and mutual influences

Elena Zemskova, Elena Ostrovksaya, Natalia Kharitonova, Anna Sabashnikova, Yana Linkova.
In 2014 and 2015, the HSE Academic Fund supported a research project by the Research and Study Group ‘International Literature’ that studied Soviet journals of 1930-40s.

3. Social practices in literature: the role of institutions in the history of Russian philology (18^th-20^th centuries)

Mikhail Velizhev, Alexey Vdovin, Ekaterina Lyamina, Oleg Lekmanov, Alexander Ospovat, Andrey Nemzer, Mikhail Sverdlov, Konstantin Polivanov, Pavel Uspensky, Elena Penskaya and others.

4. Russian political rhetoric and social communication in the era of digital revolution: theory and pragmatics of the prolonged post-Soviet situation

Gasan Guseinov, Ekaterina Boltunova and others.

5. Russian communicative style: cross-cultural approach

Mira Bergelson and others.

Abstract: Pragmatic and sociocultural motivation of the linguistic form is visible in both the vocabulary structure and in the discourse strategies as culturally specific patterns of interaction. Together these patterns shape the unique communication style of a given culture which favors specific means of verbal, non-verbal and paraverbal communication. Research of the modern Russian communication style focuses on how traditional basic values of Russian culture motivate and determine linguistic behavior in a variety of contexts: organizational, professional, educational, and interpersonal. To avoid communication failure one has to take into account the specifics of the communication style. Russian culture demonstrates high level of the power distance and collectivist values. Russian communication style features the importance of background knowledge, personal contacts, high level of contextual ambiguity and informality. This project is relevant for bringing the ‘Russian point of view’ to the international community and for enhancing the quality of communication in organizations. The project targets at new research instruments and data base for studying new communication formats. Planned results include a series of papers in leading international publications and an edited volume by the project leader.

6. Conflict communication and linguistic expertise: research and methods of management

Maxim Krongauz, Alexander Pipersky, A. Somin and others.

Abstract: Conflict communication is one of the key communication types. Nowadays its study is facilitated by the availability and preservation of texts on the Internet. Research of the architecture of conflict (its structure, roles and strategies of participants, mechanisms of its initiation and development, time and communication space) from a linguistic point of view has fundamental as well as applied value. The results of such a research become the basis for modeling of conflict situations and their resolution. From the applied perspective we can talk about the institutionalization of conflict resolution by means of linguistic methods in judical and extrajudicial spheres (linguistic examenation, mediation).

Expected outcomes: collective monograph, 3 publications in leading linguistic journals, ongoing scientific seminar with the participation of students, masters and post-graduate students

7. Recognizing structural elements in a handwritten text on the basis of intellectual image analysis

Elena Penskaya, together with Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, State Archive of the Russian Federation, State Literature Museum, and MSU Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics.

8. The idea of theatre as the construction of a new European culture. Evolution of artistic style and institutionalization of cultural contacts between the Soviet Union, Germany, and France. Late 1920s – 1930s.

Elena Penskaya. Jointly with the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts and Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH), France

9. DramaNet Research project

Elena Penskaya, in partnership with Dahlem Humanities Center Freie Universität Berlin.

10. Mandelstam encyclopedia

Pavel Polyan-Nerler, Oleg Lekmanov.

Mandelstamian Encyclopaedia is a project with a long-time prehistory. It started about ten years ago, but some extremely difficult and hard problems retarded its implementation: two first editors-in-chief, S.S.Averintsev and M.L. Gasparov, passed away; then followed the death of M.V. Sokolova, one of main initiators of the project and its academic secretary. It required a lot of time and great efforts to overcome such unhappy circumstances and to continue the work.
The Encyclopaedia consists of two volumes. The first one contains some introductory materials (in particular an article “Osip Mandelstam and the World Culture” by V.B. Mikushevich) and a main part, where one can find encyclopaedian articles in alphabetical order. There are some principal subjects in the first volume:

1) works of Mandelstam (most important and useful information of a specific work; its publications; prosody, semantics etc.);

2) editions published during the author’s lifetime;

3) biography of Mandelstam;

4) contemporaries of the poet;

5) Mandelstamian toponymy;

6) his poetics;

7) his world outlook,

8) Osip Mandelstam in context of the world culture;

9) his literary heritage;

10) perpetuation of the poet’s memory.

In the second volume one can find articles devoted to iconography of the poet, bibliography, concordance, filmography, translation of Mandelstamian works from Russian into different languages and to archive sources. In final part of this volume are some necessary indexes.

Making of the Mandelstamian Encyclopaedia is sponsored by RGNF (Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund): an editorial board has received a grant for this purpose (time limit is 2015 – 2017). Research and preparation for publication should be completed this year. On the 15^th of January, 2016 was 125 years since birthday of Osip Mandelstam, and the anniversary is widely celebrated in Russia and abroad. The Encyclopaedia is going to be published in the following year, 2017.

11. Sources of European literatures: new issues and contemporary approaches to research

Natalia Dolgorukova, M. Volkonskaya, Natalia Samokhvalova, V. Avdonin.