Ivan Kashkin’s Course on American Literary History (1928)
- Issue:
- УДК / UDK: 821.111(73).0+821.161.1Р.0
- DOI:
- EDN:
- Funding Sources:
The research was carried out at A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, grant no. 23-18-00393 “Russia / USSR and the West Viewing Each Other: Literature in the Context of Culture and Politics in 20th Century” (https://rscf.ru/ project/23-18-00393/).
- Abstract:
The paper is dedicated to Ivan Kashkin’s groundbreaking lecture course on the history of American literature. It lasted several semesters for students of different years, covered literary history of the United States from the 17th century. until the 1920s and was complemented by seminars (“practicums”). Kashkin drew up a detailed plan for the course — lectures and seminars — in 1928 and for his classes at the Higher State Literary Courses and the Higher Courses of Foreign Languages at the Library of Foreign Literature. Kashkin’s plan included an additional “translation” element: he had been teaching translation to his students since 1925, and the culmination of this career was Kashkin’s work at the new Institute of Foreign Languages (1930–1933): the students to whom he taught there formed Kashkin’s famous First Translation Team. However the course of American literary history that was supposed to last dozens of class hours, was never continued or renewed either by Kashkin himself or by anyone else: it simply didn’t fit into the increasingly standardized university curricula. It is nevertheless important to go back to the origins of Soviet American studies and analyse the valuable experience of Kashkin’s project, its breadth and detailed elaboration. Kashkin’s plans of lectures and seminars published in the addendum are stored in his personal fund in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.
- Keywords: USA literary history, teaching American literature in the USSR, translation, Ivan Kashkin.
- For citation:
Panov, Sergey, and Olga Panova. “Ivan Kashkin’s Course on American Literary History (1928).” Literature of the Americas, no. 17 (2024): 318-373. https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2024-17-318-373
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