Ke Peng

Ke Peng

27 Feb. 2023

Tynyanov, Historical novel, Petersburg writing, City square, Imperialism.

From the perspectives of time and space, Yury Tynyanov's historical novels always revolve around Imperial Russia and Imperial Petersburg. Imperialism and Petersburg writing are two issues in Tynyanov's historical novels that have not been adequately studied so far. Taking Tynyanov's historical novels as a textual basis, this paper uses the city square and the people in the city as an entry points for analyzing the Petersburg writing. Petersburg Square reflected the author's thoughts on urban modernity in the text. According to Tynyanov, it was a revolutionary square and a space where the state power implements discipline and punishment. The emperor, the powerful presence in the imperial capital, became the subject of satire and parody in Tynyanov's short and medium-length historical novels, and the literary figure, the protagonist of a long trilogy, was in a relationship with Petersburg, while the author also portrayed a fringe figure with a distinct personality. Tynyanov's Petersburg writing was developed from a retrospective perspective, adopted cinematography in certain segments, and recreated several "Petersburg text" themes at the same time. His writing of the city was particularly valuable in the history of Soviet literature, which was not only a unique historical memory, but also a response to the history that the author was experiencing at the beginning of the 20th century.

© 2023, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license