The phenomenon of Leo Tolstoy in V. Azbukin’s research interpretation (based on the lecture course on the history of Russian literature of the late nineteenth century)

Abstract

   The review focuses on the concept of Leo Tolstoy’s phenomenon in scientific works of Vladislav Nikolaevich Azbukin (1932–1999), one of the patriarchs of the Kazan literary school in the 20^th century. Special attention is paid to the “Tolstoyan” section of the lecture course on the history of Russian literature of the late 19^th century, which was delivered to the students of Kazan State University by this wellknown literary scholar in the last quarter of the 20^th century.

   For V. Azbukin, the major tasks in the course of academic and research representation and analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s phenomenology were the following: – general characteristics of the great writer’s personality and his discoveries against the background of global and national literary culture;
– the problem of a dialogue between Leo Tolstoy, his creative heritage and his predecessors, contemporaries and descendants; – a system-oriented and chronological analysis of Tolstoy’s literary career stages from the perspective of his worldview genesis, evolution and typology as a writer-philosopher and enlightener.

   Of great importance is the constant correlation, carried out by the Kazan scholar, between the phenomenon of Leo Tolstoy’ personality and work, and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s discoveries and interpretations. The research is based on the materials from the personal archive of the author of the given article. The article is written in commemoration of the 90^th jubilee of the literary scholar in the year 2022.