Sergey Durylin and “Literary Heritage”

Abstract

The paper considers the cooperation between S.N. Durylin (1886 –1954), a scholar, writer, cultural historian, and the academic book series “Literary Heritage”. Durylin prepared several big publications for the series, among them a fundamental research “Russian Writers Visiting Goethe in Weimar” (1932; 30 academic sheets). The process of editing, as well as the principles of editorial work with authors and materials characteristic of “Literary Heritage” are uncovered in Durylin’s correspondence with the editorial staff, in particular with I.S. Zil'bershtein. The paper provides information on their joint projects that remained unrealized, for example on the series of propagandistic popular educational books that “Literary Heritage” tried to launch during the Great Patriotic (Soviet-German) war: Durylin prepared for this series several works dedicated to the XIXth century Russian writers, including Slavophiles. Durylin’s experience in “Literary Heritage” attracts attention to the difficulties pre-revolutionary intellectuals were facing with in the process of accommodation to the Soviet reality in 1930s-1950s.

Keywords

• s.n. durylin
• “literary heritage”
• i.s. zil'bershtein
• history of soviet scholarship
• study of cultural heritage
• slavophiles
• archival materials
• correspondence