In 1921, at the age of 27, Yury Tynyanov became a professor at the Petrograd Institute of Art History.

Tynyanov – Scientist

Yury Tynyanov teaches a course of the history of Russian poetry of the 18th-20th centuries. Also, together with V. B. Shklovsky, B. M. Eikhenbaum and R. O. Yakobson, the recognized masters of literature of their time, Yury Tynyanov participates in the work of the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOYAZ).

Extracts from poems were presented in an icy tone, with expressionless look, so that no one would suspect the speaker of sensitivity incompatible with the temperament of a true scientist

V. Golicina, a student

Yury Tynyanov deeply engrossed in the details of the documents. He connected seemingly insignificant facts and came to a complete picture of the past. Sometimes the bill from the hotel revealed more truth than the official, ceremonial document.

One of the documents that Yury Tynyanov could have studied

There are ceremonial documents, and they lie just like people do. I have no reverence for “a document in general”. A person was exiled to the Caucasus for free-thinking and continues to be listed in Nizhny Novgorod, in the Tenginsky regiment. Do not believe, go to the border of the document, make a hole in it.

Yury Tynyanov
Y. Tynyanov’s first published work. 1921

In 1921, Yury Tynyanov published the book “Dostoevsky and Gogol”. In it, he established a connection between “The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants” by Dostoevsky and “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” by Gogol.

Tynyanov believed that the hero of Dostoevsky’s story “Foma Opiskin”, or rather, his reasoning, echoed Gogol’s reasoning presented in “the Correspondence” and even mocked it in some ways.

The book “The Problem of Verse Language”, articles about Pushkin, Nekrasov, Bryusov, Blok, Khlebnikov and others were written.

Later, Tynyanov combined these articles in the book “Archaists and Innovators” published in 1929, which brought together Yury Tynyanov’s considerations regarding evolutionary processes in Russian literature.

The article “Archaists and Innovators” with a “seditious” epigram to his brother.

I always say about Tynyanov that he is a great scientist and a very good writer, who defined the mainstream of world philology for many years

Marietta Omarovna Chudakova,
Head of the Organizing Committee of the Tynyanov Readings, 2010
Y. Tynyanov’s student T. Y. Khmelnitskaya, V. A. Kaverin, L. N. Tynyanova and A. V. Ulanova at the first “Tynyanov Readings” in Rezekne. 1982

Since 1982, the city of Rezekne has become the venue for the world-famous, traditional Tynyanov readings, in which well-known and novice scientists – philologists from around the world take part. At the readings, historians and literary theorists deliver addresses and materials of their research. Based on the materials of the readings, the collection “Tynyanov Readings” is regularly published.

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