This article analyzes critical and reader debates about A. P. Chekhov from the 1880s to 1900s. As A. P. Chudakov noted, contemporaries reacted sharply to the innovative features of the writer’s poetics. The debate over the authenticity of Chekhov’s depictions of Russia was particularly intense and divisive. Some saw the writer as a “reflector” and “historian” of Russian life, while others perceived his works as “caricatures.” The most insightful readers, however, drew attention to the distinctive features of Chekhov’s poetics, the specifics of his creative method, and his “work” with reality. Some aspects of Chekhov’s poetics (the concentration of certain types of details bordering on caricature, the introduction of implausible and unrealistic details to create a tense atmosphere, and the use of suggestive techniques) have been little studied, and literary scholars often continue to interpret Chekhov’s realism as a “depiction of everyday life.” The reaction of Chekhov’s contemporary readers may become an incentive for further research into how the works of this writer are “made,” to use B. M. Eikhenbaum’s term.

Intertextual consistency reflects the degree of alignment between translated works and significantly influences how readers comprehend them. This level of alignment offers a productive field, allowing for the observation of social, linguistic, and cultural differences between the source language (SL) and target language (TL). The focus of this article is to examine “The Shooting Party” by A. P. Chekhov; its Turkish (2020) and English (1926) translations in terms of equivalence classifications by Werner Koller. The aim of the research is to explore the challenges encountered during translation and to evaluate the strategies and expression methods used for conveying the essence of the novel. These challenges stem in part from the typological differences between Russian, Turkish, and English, belonging to different language families. The findings also suggest that, when translating from Russian to Turkish and English, it is often necessary to employ auxiliary elements and explanatory notes. Such elements, when incorporated effectively into the translation, play a critical role in facilitating the target reader’s comprehension.

At the beginning of the 20th century, India was undergoing a period of transition marked by tension in its socioeconomic and cultural development. Leading Indian writers and thinkers, searching for new ideas and forms of expression, turned to Russian literature, where they found answers to many pressing questions. The innovative playwright and master of the short story, Anton Chekhov, attracted the attention of the Indian literary world when his works began to be published in the country’s literary journals. They went on to have a profound influence on the literary world and progressive writers of India: M. Premchand, R. Tagore, T. Bandyopadhyay, and others. Chekhov’s themes, ideas, and poetics can be traced in the works of many Indian writers, as the issues raised in the works of the Russian classic are highly relevant in the Indian context. This article provides a brief overview of the Chekhovian tradition in India and highlights the main Chekhovian themes embodied in the works of Indian writers. The article demonstrates that the reception of Chekhov in India occurred through two primary channels: direct contacts (influence and direct borrowing) and typological convergences resulting from the commonalities in the socio-cultural development of both countries in the 20th century.

Chekhov’s book “Sakhalin Island” is a significant milestone in the writer’s work, not only because it raises the social and humanitarian problems of the time, but also because, on the one hand, it accumulates themes and artistic strategies of pre-Sakhalin prose, and on the other hand, reflects new techniques of poetics, which were developed and deepened under the impression of what they saw on the “island of suffering.” The subject of this article is the dual nature of the prison chronotope in Chekhov’s artistic and documentary discourses. In this work, the multi-genre work “Sakhalin Island” is considered in unity with Chekhov’s fiction. In the story “Dreams” (1886), the artistic depiction of a prison and a prisoner anticipates the documentary description in the book “Sakhalin Island.” In the story “Gusev” (1890), written under the impression of what he saw on a hard labor island, the factuality and journalistic axiology inherent in the essay narrative are deepened by metaphysical symbolism. The double optics of Chekhov the essayist and Chekhov the artist determine the stylistic heterogeneity of the book “Sakhalin Island” and the interference of artistic and journalistic discourses in his work.

This article compares the philosophical perspectives of I. Kant and F. M. Dostoevsky in their religious aspects. It examines Dostoevsky’s attitude toward Kant’s a priori categories, the two thinkers’ discussions of the possibility of proving the existence of God and immortality, and questions of anthropology, the existence of free will, and the interrelationship of faith and morality. It demonstrates how Dostoevsky’s characters “rebel” against the boundaries of reason and knowledge established by Kant, and strive to transcend a priori categories in their search for God. This is reflected both in the novels’ themes and in their poetics. Dostoevsky’s characters seem to “deny” space and time in order to transcend the limits of human cognition. Kant’s moral law calls for conscious adherence to rules, duty, and the categorical imperative. Dostoevsky understands human freedom as voluntarism, a violation of rational laws. The justification for this for Dostoevsky’s characters is the higher idea they attain. If, for Kant, God and immortality are justified by the presence of moral law in man, for Dostoevsky, it is important to love Christ not only as “good,” but also as a person.

The report presents an analysis of the scientific conference “Pushkin in Culture: On the 225th Anniversary of His Birth,” held on October 10–12, 2024 at Pskov State University. Reviewing the content of the reports, the author of the article notes their thematic breadth and diversity of problems. The article shows that along with speeches devoted to the poetics of Pushkin’s works, there were reports that deepened the historical and literary context of Pushkin’s work, as well as having a methodological perspective on understanding Pushkin’s works and his language. The most significant problem in terms of depth of disclosure during the conference was the reflection of Pushkin’s legacy in visual, theatrical, and communicative culture. The article pays special attention to new research approaches to the reception of Pushkin’s personality and creativity in the literature of the 19th–21st centuries. The article notes that the conference is in continuity with the Pushkin scientific events of the Pskov State University, starting from the 1960s to the present.

The article focuses on the editorial policies of the magazines Vremya and Sovremennik in their coverage of international events from January 1861 to April 1862. During this period, both publications were published concurrently, and their strategies for covering events such as the Italian Risorgimento, the Mexican intervention, and the position of Hungary within the Austrian Empire were similar. The most significant difference between the two magazines was their approach to the American Civil War. The journals’ coverage of internal politics in the Ottoman Empire also differed significantly. The research also shows that Dostoevsky wrote his article “Slavophiles, Montenegrins, and Westerners...” largely due to Chernyshevsky’s writings in the Politics section of the journal for 1861, which addressed the Slavic question and the events in the United States in a particular way.

The name of Vladimir Ivanovich Taneyev (1840–1921), brother of the renowned musician and composer Sergei Taneyev, has largely disappeared from philosophical and philological discourse over the past 50 years; however even before then, his works were rarely the subject of scholarly study. This stems from the scholar’s straightforwardness, his reluctance to grasp the changes that shaped the philosophical landscape at the turn of the 20th century, and his entrenched positivist approach to phenomena. However, a completely different image of the thinker emerges in his memoirs, which are analyzed in this article. The structure of Taneyev’s memoirs, his subtlety of perception, and his ability to discern people speak of an undeniable gift for writing, which, combined with meticulousness and disciplined thought, yielded the most extraordinary and unexpected results. The article argues that Taneyev’s writing ability was greatly enhanced by his exposure to literary works, the opinions of which he conveys to potential readers.

Based on the Dantean code of Goncharov’s prose, the article presents an analysis of the musical text in the novel Oblomov. Norma’s cavatina is related to another sound worlds of the novel — the “noise of the spheres” and the “serene silence” of the Vyborg side. The metaphor “noise of the spheres” represents the Pythagorean teaching about heavenly music, which sounds in the highest circles of Purgatory, but also captures the “small noise of nature.” In Dante, this happens against the backdrop of Matelda’s singing and due to the will of Beatrice, and in Goncharov it is described in the plan of a new life, on which Oblomov is working, where, against the background of the music “Casta diva,” which is not yet performed by Olga, but by an allegorical woman, ordinary life is in full swing. The “noise” of the Vyborg side can potentially overcome its earthly horizontal, but in the novel’s reality, this does not happen; there is no music there. The Crimean chapter, on the contrary, is permeated with music, harmonizing and elevating everyday life. As a result, “Casta Diva” becomes the most important musical and semantic “point” of the novel. Its sound is not reducible to the love line of Oblomov and Olga and extends to all events, suggesting the possibility of a New Life for modern man.

The article raises the question of the deep ideological connection between the first collection of N. A. Nekrasov’s poems Dreams and Sounds and the poet’s mature works. The analysis of Nekrasov’s early lyrics shows a consistently sustained polemic with E. A. Boratynsky and other Russian romantics from the standpoint of traditional religiosity as opposed to the aestheticization of religion. The article considers the poet’s attitude to creativity as a “religious feat,” as a means of spiritual salvation, finding the “crown of love,” and elevation from “petty passions” to the “great deed of love.” The article emphasizes the absence of lyrical self-expression in the poet’s first collection, and the abundance of didacticism. The author of the article proves that the mature Nekrasov gave Russian poetry something that sharply distinguishes him from others, including the greatest Russian poets, i. e., an inimitable piercing intonation of spiritual anguish in love and righteous anger. The article notes the connection between the most important poetic features of Nekrasov’s lyrics and the Gospel, the Christian worldview, which has not yet been adequately studied. Dreams and Sounds were not a mistake or failure of Nekrasov, but a necessary step on the path to the poetry of “love and anger.”