Sergii Vilinskii’s Scientific Way: Self-Realization of the Scientist-Emigre in the Foreigner Environment

Abstract

The article treats a question about a complex feature of a scientific situation in the Central Europe of the years 20–30 of the XX-th century, reflected in the activity of Russian formalists and Prague linguistic circle on a background of the independent circle in literary criticism researches of the intermilitary Czechoslovakia which generated “Russian-French-American coherenceˮ. The question is considered on the example of medievalist Sergii Vilinskii (who teached M. Bakhtin in due time), entered afterwards in the environment of Czech bohemists, special place in his scientific activity was intended for popularization of Russian classical literary heritage, especially works of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The given research rested on archival materials of Masaryk University in Brno. The unknown before details of his biography are considered: his way in science, begun in Odessa, continued in St.-Petersburg, completed in the Czech Republic. Change of a problematics of his researches which testifies to unconditional influence of life circumstances on scientific work, to the complexity of self-realization of a scientist in his new context. Unlike sociological critics or Russian radical positivists – from so-called revolutionary democrats – up to populists and the psychologists of literature following traditions of Alexander Potebnja, – Vilinsky follows the A. Veselovskyʼs line: i.e. the line of integration of comparativistics, historical poetics and a social background.