A History of Design, Creation, Publication, and Critical Reception  of Lyubov Gurevich’s Novel Flatland (Ploskogoryeˮ)

The article attempts to characterize L.Y. Gurevich’s (1866-1940) creative persona and explain the reasons behind her refusal to continue her career as a writer and her transition to “the guild of critics.” A study of contemporary responses to the novel Ploskogorye (Flatland, 1897) suggests that their utterly arbitrary interpretation of the central idea, misinterpretation of the content and harsh criticism seemed to be painful to the young writer. The incomprehension of the critics, which could be found even in well-intentioned reviews, their contradictory remarks and focus on secondary aspects reveal, among other things, shortcomings of the methodology of criticism in general (especially in populist and Marxist criticism). Moreover, it also demonstrates male critics’ common unfriendliness towards women’s writing, which the author of the novel could not help but feel. In addition, the reviews allow us to look at the unsuccessful method of promoting the novel by the writer herself and similar ways that critics used to diminish the importance of works written by female authors. Nevertheless, various interpretations of the novel make it possible to read it from different perspectives and conclude how readers might have reacted to it.

Keywords

L.Y. Gurevich, the magazine Severny Vestnik, reception, “male criticism,” novel Ploskogorye (Flatland), A.L. Volynsky, idealism

Acknowledgment

The research was carried out at the expense of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (the project “A Woman Author: Writing Strategies and Practices in the Modern Eraˮ, No. 23-28-00348) at the А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Received

27.06.2023

Publication date

28.06.2023

Number of characters

57755

Cite

GOST	Mikhailova M. A History of Design, Creation, Publication, and Critical Reception of Lyubov Gurevich’s Novel “Flatland” (“Ploskogoryeˮ) // Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka – 2023. – V. 82. – Issue 3 C. 43-57 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://izv-oifn.ru/S160578800026313-0-1 (circulation date: 20.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S160578800026313-0
MLA	Mikhailova, Maria V "A History of Design, Creation, Publication, and Critical Reception of Lyubov Gurevich’s Novel “Flatland” (“Ploskogoryeˮ)." Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82.3 (2023):43-57. DOI: 10.31857/S160578800026313-0
APA	Mikhailova M. (2023). A History of Design, Creation, Publication, and Critical Reception of Lyubov Gurevich’s Novel “Flatland” (“Ploskogoryeˮ). Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82(3), pp.43-57 DOI: 10.31857/S160578800026313-0

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