Introduction

The distinctive feature of Russian Formalism is the emphasis on the functional role of literary devices and the original conception of the evolution of literary history. Russian Formalists advocated a scientific method to the exclusion of traditional psychological and cultural-historical approaches. As Erlich points out, “[i]ntent upon delimiting literary scholarship from contiguous disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and intellectual history, the formalist theoreticians focused on the ‘distinguishing features’ of literature, on the artistic devices peculiar to imaginative writing” (The New Princeton Encyclopedia 1101). Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos/-ology = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of mind and behavior. ... Social interactions of people and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. ... ... Creative writing is a term used to distinguish certain imaginative or different types of writing from generic writing. ...

Two general principles underlie the Formalist study of literature: 1) literature itself, or rather, those of its features that distinguish it from other human activities must constitute the object of inquiry of literary theory; 2) ‘literary facts’ have to be prioritized over the metaphysical commitments of literary criticism (whether philosophical, aesthetic or psychological) (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 16). To achieve these objectives several models were developed. ... ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ...

Mechanistic Formalism

The OPOJAZ (the Society for the Study of Poetic Language) group headed by Viktor Shklovsky was primarily concerned with the Formal method and focused on technique and device. “Literary works, according to this model, resemble machines: they are the result of an intentional human activity in which a specific skill transforms raw material into a complex mechanism suitable for a particular purpose” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 18). This approach strips the literary artefact from its connection with the author, reader, and historical background. Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (or Shklovskii) (January 24, 1893–December 6, 1984) was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer. ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ...

Some OPOJAZ members argued that poetic language was the major artistic device. Shklovsky, however, insisted that not all artistic texts de-familiarize language, some of them achieve defamiliarization or ostranenie by manipulating composition and narrative. Defamiliarization is the artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar. ... Defamiliarization is the artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar. ... In non-technical terms, no matter what the context (whether scientific, philosophical, legal, etc) a narrative is a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (per Walter Fisher). ...

Formalist movement attempted to systematically discriminate between art and non-art. Therefore its notions are organized in terms of polar oppositions. One of the most famous dichotomies introduced by the mechanistic Formalists is a distinction between story and plot, or fabula and sjuzhet. Story (fabula) is a chronological sequence of events, whereas plot (sjuzhet) can unfold in non-chronological order. The events can be artistically arranged by means of such devices as repetition, parallelism, gradation, and retardation. Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Art Resources DEFINE.name Glossary Index ArtLex. ... Repetition is the occurrence of an event which has occurred before. ...

The mechanistic methodology reduced literature to a variation and combination of techniques and devices devoid of a temporal, psychological, or philosophical element. Shklovsky very soon realized that this model had to be expanded to embrace, for example, contemporaneous and diachronic literary traditions (Garson 403). ...

Organic Formalism

Disappointed by the constraints of the mechanistic method some Russian Formalists adopted the organic model. “They utilized the similarity between organic bodies and literary phenomena in two different ways: as it applied to individual works and to literary genres” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 19).

An artefact, like a biological organism, is not an unstructured whole, its parts are hierarchically integrated. Hence the definition of the device has been extended to its function in text. “Since the binary opposition – material vs. device – cannot account for the organic unity of the work, Zhirmunsky augmented it in 1919 with a third term, ‘the teleological concept of style as the unity of devices’” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 19).

The analogy between biology and literary theory provided the frame of reference for genre criticism. “Just as each individual organism shares certain features with other organisms of its type, and species that resemble each other belong to the same genus, the individual work is similar to other works of its form and homologous literary forms belong to the same genre” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 19). The most widely known work carried out in this tradition is Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (1928). Main articles: Life The most salient example of biological universality is that all living things share a common carbon-based biochemistry and in particular pass on their characteristics via genetic material, which is based on nucleic acids such as DNA and which uses a common genetic code with only minor... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... Genre studies are a structuralist approach to literary criticism, film criticism, and other cultural criticism. ... In biology, a genus (plural genera) is a grouping in the classification of living organisms having one or more related and morphologically similar species. ... A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ...

Having shifted the focus of study from an isolated technique to a hierarchically structured whole, the organic Formalists overcame the main shortcoming of the mechanists. Still, both groups failed to account for the literary change which affect not only devices and their functions but genres as well. A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ...

Systemic Formalism

The diachronic dimension was incorporated into the work of the systemic Formalists. The main proponent of the “systemo-functional” model was Yury Tynyanov. “In light of his concept of literary evolution as a struggle among competing elements, the method of parody, ‘the dialectic play of devices,’ becomes an important vehicle of change” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 21). Yury Tynyanov (1894 - 1943) was a famous Russian writer, literary critic, translator, scholar and scriptwriter born in present day Belarussia. ...

Since literature constitutes part of the overall cultural system, the literary dialectic participates in cultural evolution. As such, it interacts with other human activities, for instance, linguistic communication. The communicative domain enriches literature with new constructive principles. In response to these extra-literary factors the self-regulating literary system is compelled to constantly rejuvenate itself. Even though the systemic Formalists incorporated the social dimension into literary theory and acknowledged the analogy between language and literature the figures of author and reader were pushed to the margins of this paradigm. ... Communication is the process of exchanging information, usually via a common protocol. ... ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ...

Linguistic Formalism

The figures of author and reader were likewise downplayed by the linguistic Formalists (e.g. Lev Jakubinsky, Roman Jakobson). The adherents of this model placed poetic language at the centre of their inquiry. As Warner remarks, “Jakobson makes it clear that he rejects completely any notion of emotion as the touchstone of literature. For Jakobson, the emotional qualities of a literary work are secondary to and dependent on purely verbal, linguistic facts” (71). An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ...

The theoreticians of OPOJAZ distinguished between practical and poetic language. Practical language is used in day-to-day communication to convey information. In poetic language, according to Lev Jakubinsky, “‘the practical goal retreats into background and linguistic combinations acquire a value in themselves’. When this happens language becomes de-familiarized and utterances become poetic” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 22). Communication is the process of exchanging information, usually via a common protocol. ...

Sound Patterns in Poetry

Russian Formalists were the first to study the function of sound patterns in poetry systematically and objectively. “In so doing, they initiated a method for the quantitative examination of the linguistic structure of literary texts; an approach which has proven productive for twentieth century scholarship” (Mandelker 327). Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...

In their first collective work, Sborniki po teorii poeticheskogo iazyka (1916; Anthologies on the Theory of Poetic Language), the contributors (Shklovsky, Jakubinsky, Polivanov, and Kushner) assigned sound a central role in poetic speech. In addition, they argued that in poetry, words are selected on the basis of their sound, not their lexical meaning. This line of criticism detached poetic language from practical language. Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...

Eichenbaum, however, criticised Shklovsky and Jakubinsky for not disengaging poetry from the outside world completely, since they used the emotional connotations of sound as a criterion for word choice. This recourse to psychology threatened the ultimate goal of Formalism to investigate literature in isolation. Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos/-ology = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of mind and behavior. ... ...

A definitive example of focus on poetic language is the study of Russian versification by Osip Brik. Apart from the most obvious devices such as rhyme, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and assonance, Brik explores various types of sound repetitions, e.g. the ring (kol’co), the juncture (styk), the fastening (skrep), and the tail-piece (koncovka) (“Zvukovye povtory” (Sound Repetitions); 1917). He ranks phones according to their contribution to the “sound background” (zvukovoj fon) attaching the greatest importance to stressed vowels and the least to reduced vowels. As Mandelker indicates, “[h]is methodological restraint and his conception of an artistic ‘unity’ wherein no element is superfluous or disengaged, … serves well as an ultimate model for the Formalist approach to versification study” (335). A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ... Look up onomatopoeia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Alliteration is a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. ... Blend Again, said the Red Chefs dead men. ... Brik (pronounced breek) is a Tunisian dish composed of a whole egg in a triangular pastry pocket with chopped onion and parsley. ... Within phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the phonology of a language. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

Linguistic Analysis of the Text

In “A Postscript to the Discussion on Grammar of Poetry,” Jakobson redefines poetics as “the linguistic scrutiny of the poetic function within the context of verbal messages in general, and within poetry in particular” (23). He fervently defends linguists’ right to contribute to the study of poetry and demonstrates the aptitude of the modern linguistics to the most insightful investigation of a poetic message. The legitimacy of “studies devoted to questions of metrics or strophics, alliterations or rhymes, or to questions of poets’ vocabulary” is hence undeniable (23). Linguistic devices that transform a verbal act into poetry range “from the network of distinctive features to the arrangement of the entire text” (Jakobson 23). Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist or linguistician. ... Meter (non-American spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of verse. ... Alliteration is a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... In linguistics, distinctive features are the descriptive quality by which sounds are distinguished from one another. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ...

Jakobson opposes the view that “an average reader” uninitiated into the science of language is presumably insensitive to verbal distinctions: “Speakers employ a complex system of grammatical relations inherent to their language even though they are not capable of fully abstracting and defining them” (30). A systematic inquiry into the poetic problems of grammar and the grammatical problems of poetry is therefore justifiable; moreover, the linguistic conception of poetics reveals the ties between form and content indiscernible to the literary critic (Jakobson 34). Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Grammar is the discovery, enunciation, and study of rules governing the use of language. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ...

Legacy of the Formalist School

Russian Formalism was not a uniform movement, it comprised diverse theoreticians whose views were shaped through methodological debate that proceeded from the distinction between poetic and practical language to the overarching problem of the historical-literary study. It is mainly with this theoretical focus that the Formalist School is credited even by its adversaries such as Yefimov:

The contribution of the Formalist School to our literary scholarship lies … in the fact that it has focused sharply on the basic problems of literary study, first of all on the specificity of its object, that it modified our conception of the literary work and broke it down into its component parts, that it opened up new areas of inquiry, vastly enriched our knowledge of literary technology, raised the standards of our literary research and of our theorizing about literature … effected, in a sense, a Europeanization of our literary scholarship…. Poetics, … once a sphere of unbridled impressionism, became an object of scientific analysis, a concrete problem of literary scholarship (“Formalism v russkom literaturovedenii”, quoted in Erlich, “Russian Formalism: In Perspective” 225). Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... ...

The diverging and converging forces of Russian Formalism gave rise to the Prague school of Structuralism in the mid-1920s and provided a model for the literary wing of French Structuralism in the 1960s and 1970s. “And, insofar as the literary-theoretical paradigms which Russian Formalism inaugurated are still with us, it stands not as a historical curiosity but a vital presence in the theoretical discourse of our day” (Steiner, “Russian Formalism” 29). Structuralism is a general approach in various academic disciplines that explores the inter-relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc structures are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, culture. ... Structuralism is a general approach in various academic disciplines that explores the inter-relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc structures are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, culture. ...

Bibliography of Russian Formalism in English

Gorman, David. “Bibliography of Russian Formalism in English.” Style 26:4 (1992): 554-76.

---. “Supplement to a Bibliography of Russian Formalism in English.” Style 29:4 (1995): 562-64.

Select Bibliography

Any, Carol. “Boris Eikhenbaum in OPOIAZ: Testing the Limits of the Work-Centered Poetics.” Slavic Review 49:3 (1990): 409-26.

“Boris Eichenbaum.” The Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 1058-87.

Brown, Edward J. “The Formalist Contribution.” The Russian Review 33:3 (1974): 243-58.

---. “Roman Osipovich Jakobson 1896-1982: The Unity of his Thought on Verbal Art.” The Russian Review 42 (1983): 91-99.

Erlich, Victor. “Russian Formalism: In Perspective.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 13:2 (1954): 215-25.

---. “Russian Formalism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 34:4 (1973): 627-38.

---. “Russian Formalism.” The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger and Terry V. F. Brogan. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993. 1101-02.

Garson, Judith. “Literary History: Russian Formalist Views, 1916-1928.” Journal of the History of Ideas 31:3 (1970): 399-412.

Jakobson, Roman. “A Postscript to the Discussion on Grammar of Poetry.” Diacritics 10:1 (1980): 21-35.

Mandelker, Amy. “Russian Formalism and the Objective Analysis of Sound in Poetry.” The Slavic and East European Journal 27:3 (1983): 327-38.

Rydel, Christine A. “Formalism (Russian Formalists).” Encyclopedia of the Novel. Ed. Paul Schellinger et al. Vol. 1. Chicago; London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998. 422-24. 2 vols.

Steiner, Peter. “Russian Formalism.” The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Ed. Raman Selden. Vol. 8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 11-29. 8 vols.

---. Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Warner, Nicholas O. “In Search of Literary Science the Russian Formalist Tradition.” Pacific Coast Philology 17 (1982): 69-81.

External links

Petrov, Petre. “Russian Formalism.” 2 Feb. 2002. 21 Dec. 2005 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Everard, Jerry. “Introduction to Russian Formalism.” 21 Dec. 2005 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Russian Formalism includes the work of a number of highly influential Russian and Soviet scholars (Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Boris Eichenbaum, Roman Jakobson, Grigory Vinokur) who revolutionised literary criticism between 1914 and the 1930s by establishing the specificity and autonomy of poetic language and literature. Russian Formalism exerted a major influence on thinkers such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman, and on structuralism as a whole. The movement's members are widely considered as the founders of modern literary criticism. Under Stalin it became a pejorative term for elitist art. Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (or Shklovskii) (January 24, 1893–December 6, 1984) was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer. ... Yury Tynyanov (1894 - 1943) was a famous Russian writer, literary critic, translator, scholar and scriptwriter born in present day Belarussia. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... ... Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (November 17, 1895 – March 7, 1975), a Russian philosopher and literary scholar, wrote influential works in literary theory and literary criticism. ... Yuri Lotman Yuri Lotman (also Juri, Jüri, Jurij) (28 February 1922 - 1993) was an important semiotician, culturologist, and philologist in Russian literature. ... Structuralism is a general approach in various academic disciplines that explores the inter-relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc structures are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, culture. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ...

Russian Formalism was a diverse movement, producing no unified doctrine, and no consensus amongst its proponents on a central aim to their endeavours. In fact, "Russian Formalism" describes two distinct movements: the OPOJAZ (Obscestvo izucenija POeticeskogo JAZyka - Society for the Study of Poetic Language) in St. Petersburg and the Linguistic Circle in Moscow. Therefore, it is more precise to refer to the "Russian Formalists", rather than to use the more encompassing and abstract term of "Formalism". Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: â–¶(?)) is the capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva. ...

The term "Formalism" was first used by the adversaries of the movement, and as such it conveys a meaning explicitly rejected by the Formalists themselves. In the words of one of the foremost Formalists, Boris Eichenbaum: "It is difficult to recall who coined this name, but it was not a very felicitous coinage. It might have been convenient as a simplified battle cry but it fails, as an objective term, to delimit the activities of the "Society for the Study of Poetic Language...."[1]

There is one idea that united the Formalists: the autonomous nature of poetic language and its specificity as an object of study for literary criticism. The Formalists' main endeavour consisted in defining a set of properties specific to poetic language (be it poetry or prose) recognisable by their "artfulness" and consequently analysing them as such. A clear illustration of this may be provided by the main argument of one of Viktor Shklovsky's (the founder of the OPOJAZ) early texts, "Art as Device" (Iskusstvo kak priem, 1916): art is a sum of literary and artistic devices that the artist manipulates to craft his work. Prose blah blah blahProse generally lacks the formal structure of meter or rhyme that is often found in poetry. ...

Shklovsky's main objective in "Art as Device" is to dispute the conception of literature and literary criticism common in Russia at that time. Broadly speaking, literature was considered, on the one hand, to be a social or political product, whereby it was then interpreted (in the tradition of the great critic Belinsky) as an integral part of social and political history. On the other hand, literature was considered to be the personal expression of an author's world vision, expressed by means of images and symbols. In both cases, literature is not considered as such, but evaluated on a broad socio-political or a vague psychologico-impressionistic background. The aim of Shklovsky is therefore to isolate and define something specific to literature (or "poetic language"): these, as we saw, are the "devices" which make up the "artfulness" of literature. Vissarion Grigorievich Belinskii (Виссарио́н Григо́рьевич Бели́нский) (1811 - 1848) was Russian writer, literary critic, philosopher and revolutionary activist (a Westernizer). ...

Formalists do not agree with one another on exactly what a "device" (priem) is, nor how these devices are used or how they are to be analysed in a given text. The central (and revolutionary) idea however is more general: poetic language possesses specific properties, which can be analysed as such. This, it may be argued, was already the view defended by Aristotle in his Poetics. Aristotle, marble copy of bronze by Lysippos. ...

In the Soviet period, the authorities further developed the term's pejorative associations to cover any art which used complex techniques and forms accessible only to the elite, rather than being simplified for "the people" (as in socialist realism). State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Socialist republics/ Communist state Area  - Total  - % water Largest on the planet 22,402,200 km² ?% Population  - Total  - Density 3rd before collapse 293,047,571 (July... Roses for Stalin, Boris Vladimirski, 1949 Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style of realistic art which has as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. ...

There is no direct historical relationship between New Criticism and Russian Formalism, each having developed at around the same time but independent of each other. However, despite this, there are several similarities: for example, both movements showed an interest in considering literature on its own terms (instead of focusing on its relationship to politicial, cultural or historical externalities), a focus on the literary devices and the craft of the author, and a critical focus on poetry. New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...

References

[1] Boris Eichenbaum, "Vokrug voprosa o formalistah" (Russian: "Вокруг Вопроса о Фоpмалистах") (Around the question on the Formalists), Pecat' i revolucija, no5 (1924), pp.2-3.