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“Definitions of literature, operating with its ‘main’ features, run into a living literary fact. While to give a firm definition of literature is becoming more and more difficult, any contemporary will point his finger at what a literary fact is. He will say that one thing does not belong to literature, representing a fact of poet's everyday or personal life, but the other thing, on the contrary, is precisely a literary fact.”

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A Writer and Criticism of Russian Abroad: A.M. Remizov and A.L. Bem in the circle of “scribes” and “pharisees” (according to correspondence)

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  • DOI:

    https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2026-40-59-99
  • EDN:

    https://elibrary.ru/WINOHW
  • УДК / UDK: 821.161.1.0
  • Publication Type: Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents
  • Received: 14.01.2026
  • Approved after reviewing: 10.03.2026
  • Date of publication: 25.06.2026
  • Issue:

    no. 2 (40), 2026
  • Author: Elena R. Obatnina
  • About the author:

    Elena R. Obatnina, DSc in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Makarov Emb., 4, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.

    ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1823-6321

    E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Abstract:

    The article is a part of a study devoted to the professional reception of A.M. Remizov’s work and persona within the émigré literary scene. Among the writer’s critics, A.L. Bemu played a special role as a representative of the school of critical thought closely linked to the study of literary history that had developed in Russia in the 1910s. The paper examines the views of the two correspondents on the tasks of criticism, drawing in particular on the projection (present in Remizov’s intertextual reflections) of the biblical scribes and Pharisees onto contemporary guardians of literary “norm.” The article traces Remizov’s direct addresses to Bem in his short stories of the 1931–1933. It is noteworthy that the dialogue between the two correspondents, which began within the context of the relation- ship between writer and critic, eventually shifted to an examination of the works of F. Dostoevsky. The appendix to this article contains four newly discovered letters from Bem to Remizov. Their acquaints, the “book people,” guardians of culture and science, in 1931–1933 served as the shared topic for the correspondents — the scholar from Prague and the Russian writer, who never met in person.
  • Keywords: literary history, emigration, the tasks of criticism, creative method, A.M. Remizov, A.L. Bem, Ivanov-Razumnik, B.G. Unbegaun, V.N. Tukalevsky, A.F. Luther.
  • For citation:

    Obatnina, Е.R. “A Writer and Criticism of Russian Abroad: A.M. Remizov and A.L. Bem in the circle of “scribes” and “pharisees” (according to correspondence).” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 2 (40), 2026, pp. 59–99. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2026-40-59-99.
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