The Bakhtin Circle
The Bakhtin Circle was a 20th century school of Russian thought which centered on the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975). The circle addressed philosophically the social and cultural issues posed by the Russian Revolution and its degeneration into the Stalin dictatorship. Their work focused on the centrality of questions of significance in social life in general and artistic creation in particular, examining the way in which language registered the conflicts between social groups. The key views of the circle are that linguistic production is essentially dialogic, formed in the process of social interaction, and that this leads to the interaction of different social values being registered in terms of reaccentuation of the speech of others. While the ruling stratum tries to posit a single discourse as exemplary, the subordinate classes are inclined to subvert this monologic closure. In the sphere of literature, poetry and epics represent the centripetal forces within the cultural arena whereas the novel is the structurally elaborated expression of popular ideologiekritik, the radical criticism of society. Members of the circle included Matvei Isaevich Kagan (1889-1937); Pavel Nikolaevich Medvedev (1891-1938); Lev Vasilievich Pumpianskii (1891-1940); Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinskii (1902-1944); Valentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov (1895-1936); and others.
Table of Contents
- The Early Works: 1919-1927
- The Concluding Works of the Bakhtin Circle: 1928-1929
- Bakhtin and the Theory of the Novel: 1933-1941
- Carnival, History And Popular Culture: Rabelais, Goethe And Dostoyevsky As Philosophers
- Bakhtin’s Last Works
M.M. Bakhtin and his circle began meeting in the Belorussian towns of Nevel and Vitebsk in 1918 before moving to Leningrad in 1924. Their group meetings were terminated due to the arrest of many of the group in 1929. From this time until his death in 1975, Bakhtin continued to work on the topics which had occupied his group, living in internal exile first in Kustanai (Kazakhstan, 1930-36), Savelovo (about 100 km from Moscow, 1937-45), Saransk (Mordovia, 1936-7, 1945-69) and finally moving in 1969 to Moscow, where he died at the age of eighty. In Saransk Bakhtin worked at the Mordov Pedagogical Institute (now University) until retirement in 1961.
The Bakhtin circle is reputed to have been initiated by Kagan on his return from Germany, where he had studied philosophy in Leipzig, Berlin and Marburg. He had been a pupil of the founder of Marburg Neo-Kantianism Herman Cohen and had attended lectures by Ernst Cassirer. Kagan established a “Kantian Seminar” at which various philosophical, religious and cultural issues were discussed. Kagan was a Jewish intellectual who had been a member of the Social Democratic Party (the precursor of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) and he may have been attracted to Cohen’s philosophy for its supposed affinity with Marxism (Cohen regarded his ethical philosophy as completely compatible with that of Marx), while rejecting the atheism of Russian Communism. Whatever the truth of the matter, the members of the circle did not restrict themselves to academic philosophy but became closely involved in the radical cultural activities of the time, activities which became more intense with the movement of the group to Vitebsk, where many important avant-garde artists such as Malevich and Chagall had settled to avoid the privations of the Civil War. One of the group, Pavel Medvedev, a graduate in law from Petrograd University, became rector of the Vitebsk Proletarian University, editing the town’s cultural journalIskusstvo (Art) to which he and Voloshinov contributed articles, while Bakhtin and Pumpianskii both gave public lectures on a variety of philosophical and cultural topics, as seen in recently published student notes. Pumpianskii, it is known, never finished his studies at Petrograd university, while it is doubtful whether Bakhtin had any formal higher education at all despite his claims, now disproven, to have graduated from the same University in 1918. It seems that Bakhtin attempted to gain acceptance in academic circles by adopting aspects of his older brother’s biography. Nikolai Bakhtin had a solid classical education from his German governess and graduated from Petrograd University, where he had been a pupil of the renowned classicist F.F. Zelinskii. Bakhtin had therefore been exposed to philosophical ideas since his youth. After Nikolai’s departure for the Crimea, and Mikhail’s move to Nevel, it seems that Kagan took the place of his brother as unofficial mentor, having an important influence on Bakhtin’s philosophy in a new and exciting cultural environment, although the two friends went their separate ways in 1921, the year Bakhtin married.
Kagan, however, moved to take up a teaching position at the newly established provincial university in Orel in 1921. While there he published the only sustained piece of philosophy to be published by a member of the group before the late 1920s entitled “Kak vozmozhna istoria” (How Is History Possible) in 1922. The same year he produced an obituary of Hermann Cohen in which he stressed the historical and sociological aspects of Cohen’s philosophy and wrote other unpublished works. 1922 also saw the publication of Pumpianskii’s paper “Dostoevskii i antichnost´” (Dostoyevsky and Antiquity), a theme that was to recur in Bakhtin’s work for many years. While Bakhtin himself did not publish any substantial work until 1929, he was clearly working on matters related to Neo-Kantian philosophy and the problem of authorship at this time. Bakhtin’s earliest published work is the two page “Iskusstvo i otvetstvennost´” (Art and Answerability) from 1919 and fragments of a larger project on moral philosophy written between 1920 and 1924, now usually referred to as K filosofii postupka (Towards a Philosophy of the Act).
Most of the group’s significant work was produced after their move to Leningrad in 1924. It seems that there the group became acutely aware of the challenge posed by Saussurean linguistics and its development in the work of the Formalists. Thus there emerges a new awareness of the importance of the philosophy of language in philosophy and poetics. The most significant work on the philosophy of language was published in the period 1926-1930 by Voloshinov: a series of articles and a book entitledMarksizm i filosofia iazyka (Marxism and the Philosophy of Language) (1929). Medvedev, who had been put in charge of the archive of the symbolist poet Aleksandr Blok, participated in the vigorous discussions between Marxist and formalist literary theorists with a series of articles and a book, Formal´lnyi metod v literaturovedenii (The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship) (1928) and the first book-length study of Blok’s work. Voloshinov also published an article and a book (1925, 1926) on the debate which raged around Freudianism at the time. In 1929 Bakhtin produced the first edition of his famous monograph Problemy tvorchestva Dostoevskogo (Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Work), but many other works dating from 1924-9 remained unpublished and usually unfinished. Among these was a critical essay on formalism called “Problema soderzheniia i formy v slovesnom khudozhestvennom tvorchestve” (The Problem of Content, Material and Form in Verbal Artistic Creation) (1924) and a book length study called “Avtor i geroi v esteticheskoi deiatel´nosti” (Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity) (1924-7).
Since the 1970s the works published under the names of Voloshinov and Medvedev have often been ascribed to Bakhtin, who neither consented nor objected. A voluminous, ideologically motivated, often bad-tempered and largely futile body of literature has grown up to contest the issue one way or another, but since there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the published authors were not responsible for the texts which bear their names, there seems no real case to answer. It seems much more likely that the materials were written as a result of lively group discussions around these issues, which group members wrote up according to their own perspectives afterwards. There are clearly many philosophical, ideological and stylistic discrepancies which, despite the presence of certain parallels and points of agreement, suggest these very different works were largely the work of different authors. In accordance with Bakhtin’s own philosophy, it seems logical to treat them as rejoinders in ongoing dialogues between group members on the one hand and between the group and other contemporary thinkers on the other.
The sharp deterioration in the situation of unorthodox intellectuals in the Soviet Union at the end of 1928 effectively broke the Bakhtin circle up. Bakhtin, whose health had already begun to deteriorate, was arrested, presumably because of his connection with the St. Petersburg Religious-Philosophical society, and was sentenced to ten years on the Solovetskii Islands. After vigorous intercession by Bakhtin’s friends, a favourable review of his Dostoyevsky book by Commissar of Enlightenment Lunacharskii and a personal appeal by Maksim Gor´kii, this was commuted to six years exile in Kazakhstan. With the tightening of censorship at the time, very little was published by Voloshinov, while Medvedev published a book on theories of authorship V laboratorii pisatelia (In the Laboratory of the Writer) in 1933 and a new version of the Formalism study, revised to fit in more closely with the ideological requirements of the time, in 1934. Medvedev was appointed full professor at the Leningrad Historico-Philological Institute but was arrested and disappeared during the terror of 1938. Voloshinov worked at the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad until 1934 when he contracted tuberculosis. He died in a sanitorium two year later leaving unfinished a translation of the first volume of Ernst Cassirer’s The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, a book which is of considerable importance in the work of the circle. Kagan died of angina in 1937 after working as editor of an encyclopedic atlas of energy resources in the Soviet Union for many years. Pumpianskii pursued a successful career as Professor of Literature at Leningrad University, but published only short articles and introductions to works of Russian authors, most notably Turgenev. Sollertinskii joined the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1927 as a lecturer, but soon established himself as one of the leading Soviet musicologists, producing over two hundred articles, books and reviews. He died of a heart attack, probably resulting from the privations of the Leningrad blockade, in 1944.
While in Kazakhstan Bakhtin began work on his now famous theory of the novel which resulted in the now famous articles Slovo v romane (Discourse in the Novel) (1934-5), Iz predystorii romannogo slovo (From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse) (1940), Epos i roman (Epic and Novel) (1941),Formy vremeni i khronotopa v romane (Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel) (1937-8). Between 1936 and 1938 he completed a book on the Bildungsroman and its significance in the history of realism which was lost when the publishing house at which the manuscript was lying awaiting publication was destroyed in the early days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Voluminous, most still unpublished, preparatory material still exists, although part is lost, allegedly because Bakhtin used it for cigarette papers during the wartime paper shortage. Bakhtin’s exceptional productiveness at this time is further accentuated when one considers that one of his legs was amputated in February 1938. He had suffered from inflammation of the bone marrow, osteomyelitis, for many years, which gave him a lot of pain, high temperatures, and often confined him to bed for weeks on end. This had been a factor in the appeals of his friends and acquaintances for clemency when he was internally exiled, a factor that may well have saved his life. This did not, however, prevent him from presenting a now famous doctoral thesis on Rabelais to the Gor´kii Institute of World Literature in 1940. The work proved extremely controversial in the hostile ideological climate of the time and it was not until 1951 that Bakhtin was eventually granted the qualification of kandidat. It was not published in book form until 1965.
The period between the completion of the Rabelais study and the second edition of the Dostoyevsky study in 1963 is perhaps the least well known of Bakhtin’s life in terms of work produced. This has been recently (1996) rectified with the publication of archival materials from this period, when Bakhtin was working as a lecturer at the Mordov Pedagogical Institute. The most substantial work dating from this period is Problema rechevykh zhanrov (The Problem of Speech Genres) which was most likely produced in response to the reorganisation of Soviet linguistics in the wake of Stalin’s article Marksizm i voprosy iazykoznaniia (Marxism and Questions of Linguistics) of 1953. Many other fragments exist from this time, including notes for a planned article about Maiakovskii and more methodological comments on the study of the novel.
In the more liberal atmosphere of the so-called “thaw” following Khruschev’s accession, Bakhtin’s work on Dostoyevsky came to the attention of a group of younger scholars led by Vadim Kozhinov who, upon finding out that he was still alive, contacted Bakhtin and tried to convince him to republish the 1929 Dostoyevsky book. After some initial hesitation, Bakhtin responded by significantly expanding and fundamentally altering the overall project. It was accepted for publication in September 1963 and received a generally favourable reception. Publication of the Rabelais study, newly edited for purposes of acceptability (mainly the toning down of scatology and an analysis of a speech by Lenin) followed soon after. As Bakhtin’s health continued to decline, he was taken to hospital in Moscow in 1969 and in May 1970 he and his wife, who died a year later, were moved into a retirement home just outside Moscow. Bakhtin continued to work until just before his death in 1975, producing work of a mainly methodological character.
Since Bakhtin’s death, several collections of his work have appeared in Russian and many translations have followed. English language translations have been appearing since 1968, although the quality of translation and systematicity of publication has been uneven. Up to ten different translators have published work by a writer whose terminology is very specific, often rendering key concepts in a variety of different ways. This has exacerbated problems of interpretation and questions of theoretical heritage, especially since there is a quite sharp distinction between works written before and after the 1929 Dostoyevsky study. Another problem has been the questions of authorship of the Bakhtin circle and the extent to which a Marxist vocabulary in the works of Voloshinov and Medvedev should be taken at face value. Those, for example, who argue Bakhtin was the author of these works also tend to argue that the vocabulary is mere “window dressing” to facilitate publication, while those who support the authenticity of the original publications also tend to take the Marxist arguments seriously. As a result writers about Bakhtin have tended to choose one period of Bakhtin’s career and treat it as definitive, a practice which has produced a variety of divergent versions of “Bakhtinian” thought. The recent appearance of the first volume of a collected works in Russian might help to overcome the problems which have dogged Bakhtin studies.
2. The Early Works: 1919-1927
The work of the Bakhtin Circle should be regarded as a philosophy of culture. Questions which seem to be of very specific relevance, such as the modality of author-hero relations, actually involve questions of a much more general nature encompassing the value-laden relations between subject and object, subjects and other subjects. The phenomenological arguments presented by the young Bakhtin are directed against the abstractions of rationalist philosophy and contemporary positivism. He draws much of his conceptual structure from the work of the Marburg School (most notably Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), Paul Natorp (1854-1924) and Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950)) and German phenomenologists such as Max Scheler (1874-1928) and Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936). However, it is particularly difficult to trace the precise influence of these writers because Bakhtin was notoriously inconsistent in crediting his sources and was not averse to copying whole passages which he had translated from German into Russian in his works without reference to the original. This has led many commentators either to guess at influences on the young Bakhtin or to credit him with the invention of a philosophical vocabulary almost from nothing. However, recent archival work by Brian Poole has uncovered notebooks in which Bakhtin made copious notes from various German idealist philosophers which give us a better idea both of the sources of his ideas and the originality of the philosophical work which resulted from his fusion of disparate ideas.
The ideas of the Marburg School were undoubtedly filtered to Bakhtin through the works of Matvei Kagan on his return from Germany at the end of the First World War. In his obituary of Cohen Kagan stressed the religious, messianic aspects of the former’s philosophy, which emerges in his later work. For the late Cohen, “the unity of objective being, as an unending large process of the unity of being and concept demands the unending small unity of the singular individuum…. The whole problem of religion is contained in the problem of the individuum as in the question of God.” The continual relationship between the individuum and God is the absolute element of subjectivity and is the unity of monotheism. The individual does not combine with God but continually relates to God. This has social significance, for religion grows out of ethics: “the religion of the unity of humanity is monotheism…. Religion is everywhere, in all regions of culture…. Religion itself is philosophy.” Problems of intersubjectivity must be related to questions of historical development: “in our opinion, the problem of individual relationships, the problem of subjective consciousness, ontological subjectivity can be based on the pathos of the individual condition of the struggle of the historical life of culture, the person and humanity.” Kagan stresses the parallels between Cohen’s ethics and the traditions of Russian populism, a factor which recurs later in Bakhtin’s career when the novel becomes linked with a populist political process. (M. Kagan, German Kogen, 1922) The unity of the individual is dependent on the unity of the people and this is in turn dependent on the unity of God.
Whatever the difficulties of tracing his more immediate precursors, there is no doubt that Bakhtin’s philosophical project maintained a fundamental connection with the traditions of Enlightenment aesthetics and with Kantianism in particular. As for Kant, the aesthetic is distinguished by its “disinterestedness,” the uncoupling of purposiveness from representation of the end. Where Kant concentrated on aesthetic judgement, however, Bakhtin was interested in aesthetic activity which can help to establish a mode of reciprocal intersubjective relationships necessary to produce an intimate unity of individuals whose specificity is in no way endangered. This project, which remains constant throughout his work, adopts various forms. The aesthetic is the realm where now detached from the “open event of being” and “finalized” by virtue of the author’s “exteriority” (vnenakhodimost´), the value-laden essence of the hero’s deed is manifested. If the hero’s activity were not objectified by the author then he or she would remain in some perpetual stream of consciousness, completely oblivious to the wider significance of those deeds. However, in order to visualise the meaningful nature of those deeds, the author must also have an insight into the subjective world of the hero, his or her horizon, sphere of views and interests (krugozor). Only the appropriate mode of empathy and objectification can produce the sort of productive whole Bakhtin envisages.
Several problems arise from this model. The first is that Bakhtin seems to want to use the author-hero model as a reciprocal principle within society and as a model of relations in literary composition. In the first model authors and heroes change their roles constantly, the unique perspective of each subject allows the objectification of others except oneself, who is objectified by others. Although the concept hardly appears in the early works, from 1928 onwards dialogue becomes the model of such interactions: one gains an awareness of one’s own place within the whole through dialogue, which helps to bestow an awareness on others at the same time. This is a very pleasant model as long as relationships remain equal. Yet the author-hero model also assumes a fundamental inequality in that the hero of a work can never have a reciprocal vantage point from which to objectify the author and thus the creator. There is a crucial difference between a person-to-person and a person-to-God relationship which Bakhtin’s model seems to obscure.
Furthermore, Bakhtin’s model of the unique perspective of each author/hero, which is drawn from the Kantian model of an individual consciousness bearing a-priori categories encountering and giving form to the manifold of sense impressions, is seriously compromised when one admits a socio-linguistic dimension into the equation. This happens in Voloshinov’s 1926 article on discourse in life and poetry. The alternative adopted by Voloshinov foregrounds the intonational dimension of language which manifests the unique evaluative connections between subject and object. Language enmeshed within everyday practical activity is extracted, or liberated, from its connection with the “open event of being” by the author who then reflects upon it, from his or her own unique vantage point, manifesting its total intonational meaning. The hero’s language is alien to the author and therefore ripe for objectification; the crucial category is the latter’s exteriority. Stress on this intonational dimension allows the encounter of the two consciousnesses to be spoken about in phenomenological rather than linguistic terms and therefore allows Bakhtin to counter what he calls “theoreticism”, the tendency to consider the inner meaning of an action and its historical specificity in isolation from each other. This might include Hegel‘s tendency to view the particular incident as meaningful only as an instance of the unfolding of reason, Husserl‘s sublation of inter-subjective relations in transcendental subjectivity or the positivistic assumption that categorisation of a phenomenon is sufficient to explain that phenomenon.
The distinctively Bakhtinian approach to language only really begins to emerge in Voloshinov’s 1926 essay Slovo v zhizni i slovo v poezii: k voprosam sotsiologicheskoi poetiki (Discourse in Life and Discourse in Poetry: Questions of Sociological Poetics), written during his postgraduate studies at the Institute of Material, Artistic and Verbal Culture in Leningrad where L.P. Iakubinskii, the pioneer of the study of dialogic speech, was among his advisers. This work, which has been seen as the earliest example of pragmatics by more than one commentator, is the first work of the circle to be presented as an explicitly Marxist text. The author attempts to define the aesthetic as a specific form of social interaction characterised by its “completion by the creation of the artistic work and by its continual recreations in cocreative perception and it does not require any other objectifications”. In the artistic work unspoken social evaluations are “condensed” and determine artistic form. The deeper structural features of a particular social interaction are made manifest in a successful artistic work; as Voloshinov puts it, “form should be a convincing evaluation of the content” (Bakhtin School Papers ed. Shukman, Colchester 1983 p.9, 19, 20). The early Bakhtinian phenomenology is now recast in terms of discursive interaction, with a specifically sociological frame of reference.
Another of Voloshinov’s projects was a critical response to incipient psychoanalysis and contemporary attempts to attempt a fusion of Marxism and Freudianism. In 1927 he published his first book calledFreidizm: Kriticheskii ocherk (Freudianism a Critical Sketch), which continued the theme of an earlier article from 1925 Po tu storonu sotsial´nogo (Just Beyond the Social) in which Freud was accused of a biological reductionism and subjectivism quite alien to the spirit of Marxism. Leaning upon a sociological analysis of language and culture, Voloshinov stresses that intersubjectivity precedes subjectivity as such and that all meaning production and thus repression of meanings are socio-ideological rather than individual and biological as Freud supposed. It must be noted, however, that Voloshinov does not pay any attention to Freud’s later work on cultural phenomena and thus presents a rather one-sided view of contemporary psychology. Furthermore, Freudianism is treated as a manifestation of “bourgeois decay” very much in the spirit of the later Lukács. This indicates a turning towards a more Hegelian approach to questions of cultural and philosophical development, while the recasting of the Freudian superego in terms of the repression of unofficial ideologies by an official ideology anticipates one of the central themes that would occupy Bakhtin in the 1930s and 1940s.
3. The Concluding Works of the Bakhtin Circle: 1928-1929
In the late 1920s the sociological and linguistic turn signalled by Voloshinov’s article on discourse had begun to form into a distinct school of thought in which language was the index of social relations and embodiment of ideological worldview. While Voloshinov’s linguistic studies were undoubtedly crucial to this reorientation, one of the central influences on the group at the time was the work of Ernst Cassirer, whose ground-breaking Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (3 Vols) was published between 1923 and 1929. One of Voloshinov’s unfinished projects, which he began while at University, was a translation of the first volume of Cassirer’s work on language. This volume marked the culmination of Cassirer’s move away from Marburg Neo-Kantianism to a Hegelian rectification of Kant. Adopting Hegel’s dialectical orientation, evolutionary approach to human knowledge and existence and concentration of the totality of human activities, Cassirer sought to overcome the exclusivity of the Kantian focus on mankind’s rational thought processes. At the same time, however, Cassirer strove to resist the Hegelian subsumption of all realms of the human spirit into the Absolute by retaining the Kantian distinction between the “languages” of the human spirit. To this end Cassirer drew upon Herder and von Humboldt’s identification of thought and signification, viewing the “symbolic function” as the common element to all areas of knowledge, but which took a specific form in each of them. The truth, agreed Cassirer and Hegel, is whole, but the former understood this to mean that each of the perspectives offered by various symbolic forms is equally valid and must be progressively “unfolded” so as to fully articulate itself. This formulation, as we shall see, had a far reaching effect on the later work of Bakhtin, but there are signs of its influence almost immediately in the work of the group.
In 1928 P.N. Medvedev published a book-length critique of Russian Formalism. This work begins with a definition of literary scholarship as “one branch of the study of ideologies”, a study which “embraces all areas of man’s ideological creativity”. Medvedev goes on to argue that while Marxism has established the basis of such a study, including its relationship to economic factors, the study of “the distinctive features and qualitative individuality of each of the branches of ideological creation — science, art, ethics, religion, and so forth. — is still in the embryonic stage” (p.3). Despite the replacement of “symbolic forms” with “branches of ideological creation” the continuity of approach is clear. Where Cassirer sought to examine the symbolic function as “a factor which recurs in each basic cultural form but in no two takes exactly the same shape” (vol. 1, p.84), Medvedev sought to investigate the “sociological laws of development” which can be found in each “branch” of “ideological creation” but which manifests itself in specific ways. This sociological adaption of Cassirer’s work was to feature largely in Bakhtin’s work from the 1930s and 1940s, where, as Poole has demonstrated, many unattributed passages from the former’s work appear in Russian translation within the body of the latter’s work. Medvedev felt that the Formalists were correct in attempting to define the specific features of literary creation but fundamentally mistaken in the positivistic approach they took towards literary devices which tended to efface the ideological, meaning-bearing and thus sociological aspect of literary form. In conclusion Medvedev recommended that the formalists be treated respectfully and seriously, even if their fundamental premises were erroneous. Marxist criticism, he argued, should value Formalism as an object of serious criticism through which the bases of the former can be clarified.
While subjecting the Russian Formalists to intense criticism on the basis of their partisan alliance with the Futurist movement and their sharing its tendency towards a nihilistic destruction of meaning, Medvedev particularly praised Western “formalist art scholarship” such as the work of Hildebrand, Wölfflin and Worringer. These theorists were important for the development of the Bakhtin circle because they treated changes of artistic forms and styles as changes of “artistic volition”, that is, having ideological significance. Worringer saw art history to be marked by an alternation of naturalism (empathy) and abstraction (estrangement) which correlated to the harmony or otherwise in the relationship of man and his environment. While formal and evaluative aspects are not identical, they do tend to maintain a close affiliation and this, Medvedev concluded, can be applied to literary form as well as visual art. This particular chapter, along with some shorter extracts of the book were omitted from the second edition of the book published with the title Formalizm I formalisty (Formalism and the Formalists) in 1934. By this time a tolerant attitude towards the Formalists or Western scholarship was not permitted, and thus an additional and extremely hostile chapter called “The Collapse of Formalism” was included. Earlier writers on the Bakhtin Circle tended to ascribe the first edition to Bakhtin and the second to Medvedev, but it is clear that the body of the second edition is an expurgated version of the first.
Medvedev’s formulation was carried over into Bakhtin’s now famous study Problemy tvorchestva Dostoevskogo (Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Work) published in 1929. Here the great nineteenth-century novelist’s own verbally affirmed and often reactionary ideology is downplayed in favour of his “form-shaping ideology” which is seen to be imbued with a profoundly democratic spirit. Bakhtin attacks those critics, such as Engelgardt, who characterised Dostoyevsky’s creative method as Hegelian. In such a scheme two positions struggle for ascendancy but are transformed into a synthesis at the end; however, according to Bakhtin, there is no merging of voices into a final, authoritative voice as in the Hegelian absolute. Dostoyevsky does not present an abstract dialectic but an unmerged dialogue of voices, each given equal rights. Bakhtin follows the nineteenth-century German novelist and critic Otto Ludwig in terming this type of dialogue “polyphonic dialogue”, which allows Cassirer’s insistence on a plurality of cultural forms to be extended to a plurality of discourses in society and the novel. In the course of Dostoyevsky’s novels, argues Bakhtin, very much in the spirit of Cassirer, the worldviews of Dostoyevsky’s heroes “unfold”, presenting their own unique perspective upon the world. The novelist does not, as is the case with Tolstoi, submerge all positions beneath a single authoritative perspective, but allows the voice of the narrator to reside beside the voices of the characters, bestowing no greater authority on that voice than on any of the others. Voices intersect and interact, mutually illuminating their ideological structures, potentialities, biases and limitations.
Bakhtin’s early phenomenology is now translated into discursive terms. Where Bakhtin was initially concerned with intersubjective relations and the modality of authorial and heroic interaction, this is now examined in terms of the way in which one language encounters another, reporting and modifying the utterance by reaccentuating it. Modes of interaction range from stylisation to explicit parody, which Bakhtin spends a considerable proportion of the book cataloguing. As only the later edition of the book (1963) has been published in English, there is a tendency to confuse the chronology of the emergence of Bakhtin’s key concepts. It should be noted that there is no reflection on carnival or on the Menippean Satire in the first edition of the Dostoyevsky study. These features only emerged in the next decade in relation to the history of the novel as a genre. The first edition of the Dostoyevsky study is a monograph on the work of the famous novelist in terms which in many respects embody the poetics of a significant portion of contemporary “fellow-traveller” writing. When considered in its historical context, the Dostoyevsky study can be seen as a sort of rearguard defence of liberality in the cultural arena against the encroachment of political control. The book was published on the eve of the destructive RAPP dictatorship, when bellicose advocates of “proletarian culture” were granted free reign by the newly victorious Stalinist leadership of the Soviet Communist Party. Formal experimentation and an inadequately tendentious narrative position was branded as reactionary, while Bakhtin’s work defended the presentation of a plurality of perspectives free from “monologic” closure. The formal characteristics of a work were themselves of ideological significance, but the reactionary tendency was in the imposition of a unitary perspective on a varied community of opinion.
The semiotic dimension of the new orientation of the Bakhtin Circle was developed at the same time by Voloshinov. In a series of articles between 1928 and 1930 punctuated by the appearance of the book-length Marksizm i filosofiia iazyka (Marxism and the Philosophy of Language) in 1929 (2nd edition 1930) Voloshinov published an analysis of the relationship between language and ideology unsurpassed for several decades. Voloshinov examines two contemporary accounts of language, what he calls “abstract objectivism”, whose leading exponent is Saussure, and “individualistic subjectivism”, developed from the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt by the romantic idealists Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) and Karl Vossler (1872-1942). Voloshinov argues that the two trends derive from rationalism and romanticism respectively and share both the strengths and weaknesses of those movements. While the former identifies the systematic and social character of language it mistakes the “system of self-identical forms” for the source of language usage in society; it abstracts language from the concrete historical context of its utilisation (Bakhtin’s “theoreticism”); the part is examined at the expense of the whole; the individual linguistic element is treated as a “thing” at the expense of the dynamics of speech; a unity of word meaning is assumed to the neglect of the multiplicity of meaning and accent and language is treated as a ready-made system whose developments are aberrations. The latter trend is correct in viewing language as a continuous generative process and asserting that this process is meaningful, but fundamentally wrong in identifying the laws of that creation with those of individual psychology, viewing the generative process as analogous with art and treating the system of signs as an inert crust of the creative process. These partial insights, Voloshinov argues that a stable system of linguistic signs is merely a scientific abstraction; the generative process of language is implemented in the social-verbal interaction of speakers; the laws of language generation are sociological laws; although linguistic and artistic creativity do not coincide, this creativity must be understood in relation to the ideological meanings and values that fill language and that the structure of each concrete utterance is a sociological structure.
Several commentators have noted how Voloshinov’s approach to language anticipates many of the criticisms of linguistic philosophy levelled by present day Poststructuralists, but does so without invoking the relativism of much of the latter or the nullity of Derrida‘s “hors texte.” Voloshinov firmly establishes the sign-bound nature of consciousness and the shifting nature of the language system, but instead of viewing the subject as fragmented by the reality of difference, he poses each utterance to be a microcosm of social conflict. This allows sociological structure and the plurality of discourse to be correlated according to a unitary historical development. In this sense Voloshinov’s critique bears a strong resemblance to the Italian Communist leader Antonio Gramsci’s account of hegemony in his Prison Notebooks. Like Voloshinov and Bakhtin, Gramsci drew upon the work of Croce and Vossler and Matteo Bartoli’s Saussurean “spatial linguistics”, and combined it with a Hegelian reading of Marxism. As we have seen, however, Voloshinov was heavily influenced by the work of Cassirer, whose admiration for the work of von Humboldt, the founder of generative linguistics, was substantial. Voloshinov’s critique thus tended towards the romantic pole of language study rather than taking up the equidistant position he claimed in his study. This can be seen in the tendency to see social groups as collective subjects rather than institutionally defined collectives and such assertions as those which suggest the meaning of a word is “totally determined” by its context. What Voloshinov effectively does is to supplement Humboldt’s recognition of individual and national linguistic variability with a sociological dimension. Humboldt’s “inner-form” of language is recast as the relationality of discourse, dialogism. Abandoning the Marxist distinction between base and superstructure, Voloshinov follows Cassirer and Hegel in seeing the variety of linguistic forms as expressions of a single essence. It is significant that Gramsci, who adopted a consistently pragmatist epistemology followed the same course and emerged with startlingly similar formulations.
This suggests that the relations between the work of the Bakhtin school and Marxism are ones which are complex and worthy of close scrutiny. Those who have tried to set up a Chinese wall between the two tendencies or who have tried to identify them, have consistently failed to do justice to this philosophical dialogue. Some have even gone so far as to see the work of the group as fundamentally anti-Hegelian, a charge which collapses as soon as one traces the use of terminology in the works from the late 1920s.
4. Bakhtin and the Theory of the Novel: 1933-1941
The shift in Bakhtin’s thought from Kant towards Hegel is nowhere clearer than in his central works on the novel. This can be seen in the new centrality Bakhtin grants to the history of literature to which Kant had been largely indifferent. As if to stress his indebtedness to German idealism, Bakhtin adopts all of the characteristics of the novel as a genre catalogued by Goethe, Schlegel and Hegel with little modification and traces how the “essence” of the genre “appears” over a course of time. The development of the novel is described in a way distinctly reminiscent of Cassirer’s “symbolic forms” which unfold to present their unique view of the world which is itself a modified version of Hegel’s characterisation of thePhenomenology of Spirit as the representation of “appearing knowledge”. At the same time, however, the novel adopts many of the features of the role of Hegel’s philosophy in its Cassireran guise as the philosophy of culture. Such a philosophy, argued Cassirer, does not attempt to go behind the various image worlds created by the human spirit but “to understand and elucidate their basic formative principle” (The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms vol. 1, Language p.113). The novel, according to the scheme developed by Bakhtin, elucidates this principle with regard both to other literary genres and socio-ideological discourses. The old idealist formulation of the novel’s imperative that it be a “full and comprehensive reflection of its era” is reformulated as “the novel must represent all the ideological voices of its era… all the era’s languages that have any claim to being significant” (411). The novel is a symbolic form, but a specific one in which the “basic formative principle” of symbolic forms becomes visible. The socially stratified national language, heteroglossia in itself, becomes heteroglossia for-itself rather as thought perceives itself as its own object at the climax of Hegel’s Phenomenology.
The novel, for Bakhtin, uncovers the formative principle of discourse, its relationality, dialogism, without presenting some final absolute language of truth such as that which constitutes Hegelian conceptualism. The novel develops into something akin to a visio intellectualis of the sort Cassirer found in the work of Nicholas Cusanus. This is a whole which includes all various viewpoints in its accidentiality and necessity, “the thing seen and the manner and direction of the seeing” (Cassirer The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy 1963, p.32). No individual perspective is adequate to the whole in itself, for only the concrete totality of perspectives can present the whole:
Languages of heteroglossia, like mirrors that face each other, each of which in its own way reflects a little piece, a tiny corner of the world, force us to guess at and grasp behind their inter-reflecting aspects for a world that is broader, more multi-levelled and multi-horizoned than would be available to one language, one mirror. (Bakhtin Voprosy literatury i estetikipp.225-26)
While this aspect of Bakhtin’s theory of the novel is most likely based on the philosophy of Cassirer, who developed his work as a defence of liberal values in the context of an increasingly chauvinistic atmosphere in Weimar Germany, a different political slant becomes markedly more apparent in Bakhtin’s work of the 1930s. The novelist now becomes the heir of an anti-authoritarian popular cultural strategy to deflate the pretensions of the official language and ideology and institute a popular-collective learning process. The antecedent of this strategy is not German bourgeois liberalism but Russian populism (narodnichestvo). Thus the dialectic of mythical and critical symbolic forms which Cassirer outlined in his philosophy now becomes fused with a dialectic of official and popular socio-cultural forces. On one side stand the forces of cultural centralisation and stabilisation: the “official strata”, unitary language, the literary canon and so on. On the other side stands the decentralising influence of popular culture: popular festivity and collective ridicule, literary parody, and the anti-canonic novel. The rise of the novel is correlated with the collapse of antique unity and the breaking down of cultural boundaries. Where the official culture developed a canon of poetic genres which posited a rarified language in opposition to the common spoken language, presented a monolithically serious worldview and epic accounts of a golden age and heroic beginnings, the novel parodies these features, ridiculing the official culture’s claims to universal validity and the ossified conventionality of canonic forms and language.
The novel is thus a literary expression of a whole socio-cultural process, but this process is rather too broad to be incorporated under the label Bakhtin gives to it without considerable problems with regard to conceptual accuracy. The adjective poetic becomes shorthand for the whole complex of institutional and cultural forms which can be included on the side of officialdom. Thus poetic denotes both a type of discourse used in artistic texts and a hierarchical relation between discourses which constitutes the hegemonic relationships of an unequal society. Correspondingly, novelistic describes both the character of a genre, multi-accented artistic discourse, and an anti-authoritarian relationship between discourses. Another pair of terms which is often used interchangeably with these two is monologic and dialogic. The former denotes a mono-accentual type of discourse and an authoritarian stance towards another discourse. The latter describes a multi-accentual discourse, the relationality of discourse, and an orientation on a monologic discourse which seeks to reveal the ideological structure lurking behind surface appearances. The ground between formal and political terms shifts before the reader, who is constantly reminded of the institutional co-ordinates for all discursive phenomena but is never presented with a sociological account of those co-ordinates. This might be explained both by the ideological restrictions placed on any writer in Stalin’s Russia and by the idealist frame of Bakhtin’s own theory. This ambiguity has allowed very different interpretations of Bakhtin’s work to be drawn, ranging from a tendency to reduce the whole argument to one of artistic forms, leading to a liberalistic formal criticism and attempts to correlate Bakhtin’s argument with the institutional forms of modern capitalist society. Bakhtin’s work has thus become a battleground between (mainly American) liberal academics and (mainly British) anti-Stalinist Marxists.
In its classical phase, Russian populism was, according to Walicki, “opposed to the “abstract intellectualism” of those revolutionaries who tried to teach the peasants, to impose on them the ideals of Western socialism, instead of learning what were their real needs and acting in the name of such interests and ideals of which the peasants had already become aware”. Yet it also suggested an opposition to those Second International Marxists who argued that capitalism was an unavoidable stage in the development of Russia (The Controversy Over Capitalism 1989 p.3). In one sense, then, it was a political ideology compatible with Third International Marxism, but in another it sought to reverse the hegemony of intellectuals over “the people”. Bakhtin’s poet is a hegemonic intellectual whose language relates in an authoritative fashion to the discourse of the masses, while the novelist aims to break and indeed reverse that hegemonic relationship. In Bakhtin’s formulation, the locus of critical forces of culture is the people, while the mythological forces of culture emerge from the official stratum.
Many of the central works on the novel were at least partially written in response to the theory of the novel developed by Georg Lukács. Bakhtin had begun to translate Lukács’ Theory of the Novel in the 1920s but abandoned the project upon learning that Lukács no longer liked the book but in the 1930s, when Lukács accommodated to the Stalin regime and essentially became a right Hegelian, his theory of the novel became canonical. Bakhtin agreed with Lukács that the novel represented the “essence of the age” and that irony constituted a central factor of the novelistic method, but rejected the latter’s assertion that unless the novel revealed the thread of rationality running through a seemingly anarchic world, that is, presented an authoritative perspective, the author had succumbed to bourgeois decadence. Modernist formal experimentation and the dominance of parody in modernist literature Lukács found to be a reflection of “bourgeois decay”, while Bakhtin strove to reveal its popular-democratic roots. The novel should not be seen as a compensation for the restlessness of contemporary society, uncovering the assured road to progress, but the embodiment of the dynamic forces that could shape society in a popular-democratic fashion. Thus where Lukács championed epic closure, Bakhtin highlighted novelistic openendedness; where Lukács advocated a strong narrative presence, Bakhtin advocated the maximalisation of multilingual intersection and the testing of discourse. Bakhtin takes a left Hegelian stance against Lukács; dialogism becomes analogous to Hegel’s Geist, both describing the social whole and standing in judgement over those eras in which the dialogic imperative is not realised.
5. Carnival, History And Popular Culture: Rabelais, Goethe And Dostoyevsky As Philosophers
The high point of Bakhtin’s populism can be seen in his now famous 1965 study of Rabelais and the heavily revised second edition of the 1929 Dostoyevsky book (1963). The former had been composed as Bakhtin’s doctoral dissertation which had been written in the late 1930s but was only prepared for publication when he emerged from obscurity in the 1960s. Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaia kul´tura srednevekov´ia i renessansa (The work of François Rabelais and the Popular Culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance) is a remarkable work. Bakhtin concentrates on the collapse of the strict hierarchies of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance by looking at the way in which ancient modes of living and working collectively, in accordance with the rhythms of nature, re-emerge in the forms of popular culture opposed to official culture. In Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo (Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics) Bakhtin summarises the essence of the question thus:
It could be said (with certain reservations, of course) that a person of the Middle Ages lived, as it were, two lives: one that was the official life, monolithically serious and gloomy, subjugated to a strict hierarchical order, full of terror, dogmatism, reverence and piety; the other was the life of the carnival square, free and unrestricted, full of ambivalent laughter, blasphemy, the profanation of everything sacred, full of debasing and obscenities, familiar contact with everyone and everything. Both these lives were legitimate, but separated by strict temporal boundaries. (p.129-30)
The activities of the carnival square: collective ridicule of officialdom, inversion of hierarchy, violations of decorum and proportion, celebration of bodily excess and so on embody, for Bakhtin, an implicit popular conception of the world. This conception is not, however, able to become ideologically elaborated until the radical laughter of the square entered into the “world of great literature” (Rabelais p.96). The novel of Rabelais is seen as the epitome of this process of breaking down the rigid, hierarchical world of the Middle Ages and the birth of the modern era. Rabelais is much more than a novelist for Bakhtin: his work embodies a whole new philosophy of history, in which the world is viewed in the process of becoming. The grotesque is the image of this becoming, the boundaries between person and person, person and thing, are erased as the individual merges with the people and the whole cosmos. As the individual body is transcended, the biological body is negated and the “body of historical, progressing mankind” moves to the centre of the system of images. In the carnival focus on death and rebirth the individual body dies, but the body of the people lives and grows, biological life ends but historical life continues.
The carnivalesque becomes a set of image-borne strategies for destabilising the official worldview. In a recently published article written for inclusion in the Soviet Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Literary Encyclopaedia) in 1940, Bakhtin defines the satirical attitude as the “image-borne negation” of contemporary actuality as inadequacy, which contains within itself a positive moment in which an improved actuality is affirmed. This affirmed actuality is the historical necessity implicit in contemporary actuality and which is implied by the grotesque image. The grotesque, argues Bakhtin, “discloses the potentiality of an entirely different world, of another order, another way of life. It leads man out of the confines of the apparent (false) unity, of the indisputable and stable” (Rabelais p.48). The grotesque image of the body, as an image which reveals incomplete metamorphosis no longer represents itself, it represents what Hegel called the “universal dialectic of life”.
The Renaissance birth of the historical world led to a new development in the Enlightenment. Where Rabelais was presented as the high point of Renaissance literary and philosophical development, the Enlightenment reaches one of its high points in the work of Goethe. The process dispersing the “residue of otherworldly cohesion and mythical unity” was completed at this time, helping “reality to gather itself together and condense into the visible whole of a new world” (Speech Genres and Other Late Essaysp.45). The Enlightenment, argues Bakhtin in a section which draws heavily on Cassirer (the corresponding passage is The Philosophy of the Enlightenment p.197), should no longer be considered an a-historical era, but “an epoch of great awakening of a sense of time, above all … in nature and human life” (p.26). But, argues Bakhtin “this process of preparing for the disclosure of historical time took place more rapidly, completely, and profoundly in literary creativity than in the abstract philosophical, ideological views of Enlightenment thinkers” (p.26). Goethe’s imagination was fundamentally chronotopic, he visualised time in space:
Time and space merge … into an inseparable unity … a definite and absolutely concrete locality serves at the starting point for the creative imagination… this is a piece of human history, historical time condensed into space. Therefore the plot (sum of depicted events) and the characters … are like those creative forces that formulated and humanised this landscape, they made it a speaking vestige of the movement of history (historical time), and, to a certain degree, predetermined its subsequent course as well, or like those creative forces a given locality needs in order to organise and continue the historical process embodied in it. (p.49)
Goethe wanted to “bring together and unite the present, past and future with the ring of necessity” (p.39), to make the present creative. Like Rabelais, Goethe was as much a philosopher as a writer.
The same pattern of analysis shapes the 1963 version of the Dostoyevsky study. Here Dostoyevsky is no longer treated, as in the 1929 version, as a totally original innovator, but as the heir to a tradition rooted in popular culture. The novelist stood poised at the threshold of a new era, as the rigidly hierarchical Russian Empire was poised to give way to the catastrophic arrival of capitalist anarchy and ultimately revolution. Dostoyevsky thus intersected with the threshold poetics of carnival at a different stage in its development, he sought to present the voices of his era in a “pure simultaneity” unrivalled since Dante. In contradistinction to that of Goethe this chronotope was one of visualising relations in terms of space not time and this leads to a philosophical bent that is distinctly messianic:
Only such things as can conceivably be linked at a single point in time are essential and are incorporated into Dostoevskii’s world; such things can be carried over into eternity, for in eternity, according to Dostoevskii, all is simultaneous, everything coexists…. Thus there is no causality in Dostoevskii’s novels, no genesis, no explanations based on the past, on the influences of the environment or of upbringing and so forth. Every act a character commits is in the present, and in this sense is not predetermined; it is conceived of and represented by the author as free. (p.29)
The roots of such a conception lie in carnival and, according to Bakhtin, in the carnivalised philosophical dialogues that constituted the Menippean Satire. This philosophico-literary genre reaches a new stage in Dostoyevsky’s work, where the roots of the novel as a genre stands out particularly clearly. One of those roots was the Socratic Dialogue, which was overwhelmed by the monologic Aristotelian treatise, but which continued to lead a subterranean life in the non-canonical minor satirical genres and then became a constitutive element of the novel form and, implicitly, literary modernism. This accounts for its philosophical importance.
6. Bakhtin’s Last Works
In his last years Bakhtin returned to the methodological questions that had preoccupied his earlier years, though now with a rather different perspective. This began with his work on speech genres in the 1950s, though apart from this study, did not yield any sustained texts until the 1970s. Bakhtin now began to stress the dialogic character of all study in the “human sciences”, the fact that one needs to deal with another “I” who can speak for and about his or herself in a fundamentally different way than with an inanimate and voiceless object. To this end he sought to differentiate his position from that of incipient Soviet structuralism, which adopted the “abstract objectivist” approach to language and the constitution of the subject. Bakhtin’s approach to subjectivity is dialogic, referring to the exchange of utterances rather than narrowly linguistic, and this extends to the analysis of texts which are always intertextual, meeting and illuminating each other. Just as texts have genres, “definite and relatively stable typical forms of construction of the whole” so too does speech. Thus the boundaries between complex genres such as those commonly regarded as literary and other less formalised genres should be seen as porous and flexible, allowing a dialogue of genres as well as styles.
The work of the Bakhtin circle is multifaceted and extremely pertinent to contemporary philosophical concerns. Yet their work moves beyond philosophy narrowly defined to encompass anthropology, literary studies, historiography and political theory. The vicissitudes of intellectual life in the Soviet Union have complicated assessment of the work of the circle, as has the way in which the works have been published and translated in recent years. On top of this, the works of the group have been read into a theoretical position framed by present-day concerns over poststructuralism and the fate of the subject in modern philosophy. A proper historical assessment of the work of the Bakhtin Circle will be much aided by the publication of Bakhtin’s Complete Works which will appear over the next few years. This will hopefully be followed by a harmonised English translation which will facilitate an informed assessment in the English speaking world.
University of Sheffield
Mzunguko wa Bakhtin (Kirusi: Бахтинский Круг) ni kikundi cha wasomi wa Urusi kilichoanzishwa na Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). Mzunguko huo ulizungumzia kifalsafa masuala ya kijamii na kitamaduni yaliyotokana na Mapinduzi ya Urusi na kuharibika kwake katika utawala wa kimabavu wa Stalin. Kazi yao ililenga umuhimu wa maswali muhimu katika maisha ya kijamii kwa ujumla na uumbaji wa kisanii kwa ujumla, ikichunguza jinsi lugha ilivyosajili migogoro kati ya vikundi vya kijamii. Maoni ya msingi ya mzunguko ni kwamba uzalishaji wa lugha ni kimsingi mazungumzo, iliyoundwa katika mchakato wa mwingiliano wa kijamii, na kwamba hii inaongoza kwa mwingiliano wa maadili tofauti ya kijamii kuwa kumbukumbu katika suala la reaccentuation ya hotuba ya wengine. Wakati tabaka linalotawala linajaribu kuweka hotuba moja kama mfano, madarasa ya chini yana mwelekeo wa kuharibu kufungwa kwa monologic hii. Katika uwanja wa fasihi, mashairi na epics zinawakilisha nguvu za katikati ndani ya uwanja wa kitamaduni, wakati riwaya ni usemi uliofanyiwa kazi kwa muundo wa ideolojia ya watu, ukosoaji mkali wa jamii. Miongoni mwao walikuwa Matveyev Isaevich Kagan (1889-1937), Pavel Nikolayevich Medvedev (1891-1938), Lev Vasilyevich Pumpyansky (1891-1940), Ivan Ivanovich Soltynsky (1902-1944), Valentin Nikolayevich Voloshinov (1895-1946), na wengineo. "Kulingana na kitabu cha ""The Early Works of the Bakhtin Circle"" (1919-1927), ""The Concluding Works of the Bakhtin Circle"" (1928-1929) na ""The Theory of the Novel"" (1933-1941), ""Karnival,"" ""History and Culture"" (Karnival, Historia na Utamaduni) na ""Rabelais, Goethe na Dostoevsky kama Wanafalsafa"" (Rabelais, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky) ni vitabu vya kwanza vya Bakhtin." Bakhtin na kikundi chake walianza kukutana katika miji ya Nevel na Vitebsk ya Belarus mnamo 1918 kabla ya kuhamia Leningrad mnamo 1924. Mikutano ya kikundi hicho ilifutwa mwaka 1929 baada ya kukamatwa kwa washiriki wengi wa kikundi hicho. Tangu wakati huo hadi kifo chake mnamo 1975, Bakhtin aliendelea kufanya kazi kwenye mada ambazo zilikuwa zimemchukua kikundi chake, akiishi uhamishoni ndani ya nchi kwanza huko Kustanay (Kazakhstan, 1930), Savelovo (karibu kilomita 100 kutoka Moscow, 1937), Saransk (Mordovia, 1936), na hatimaye akahamia Moscow mnamo 1969 ambapo alikufa akiwa na umri wa miaka 80. Katika Saransk, Bakhtin alifanya kazi katika Mordov Pedagogical Institute (sasa Chuo Kikuu) hadi kustaafu katika 1961. Mzunguko wa Bakhtin ulizinduliwa na Kagan aliporudi kutoka Ujerumani, ambapo alikuwa amesoma falsafa huko Leipzig, Berlin na Marburg. Alikuwa mwanafunzi wa mwanzilishi wa Marburg Neo-Kantianism Herman Cohen na alikuwa alihudhuria mihadhara na Ernst Cassirer. Kagan alianzisha "Semina ya Kantian" ambapo masuala mbalimbali ya kifalsafa, kidini na kitamaduni yalijadiliwa. Kagan alikuwa mwanafalsafa Myahudi ambaye alikuwa mwanachama wa Chama cha Social Democratic (mwanzilishi wa Bolshevik na Menshevik) na anaweza kuwa alivutiwa na falsafa ya Cohen kwa sababu ya uhusiano wake na Marxism (Cohen aliona falsafa yake ya maadili kama sawa kabisa na ile ya Marx), wakati akikataa kutokuamini Mungu kwa Ukomunisti wa Urusi. Hata hivyo, washiriki wa kikundi hicho hawakujizuia tu katika falsafa ya kitaaluma, bali walihusika sana katika shughuli za kitamaduni za wakati huo, ambazo zilizidi kuwa kali wakati kikundi hicho kilipohamia Vitebsk, ambapo wasanii wengi muhimu wa avant-garde kama vile Malevich na Chagall walikuwa wamehamia ili kuepuka ukosefu wa vita vya wenyewe kwa wenyewe. Pavel Medvedev, mwanafunzi wa sheria kutoka Chuo Kikuu cha Petrograd, alikuwa mkuu wa Chuo Kikuu cha Vitebsk Proletarian, akichapisha jarida la kitamaduni la mji wa Iskra, Iskra, ambapo yeye na Voloshinov walichangia makala, wakati Bakhtin na Pumpkin wote wawili walifanya hotuba za umma juu ya mada mbalimbali za kifalsafa na kitamaduni. Pumpiansky hakuwahi kumaliza masomo yake katika Chuo Kikuu cha Petrograd, wakati ni shaka kama Bakhtin alikuwa na elimu yoyote rasmi ya juu licha ya madai yake, sasa kupingwa, kuwa alihitimu kutoka Chuo Kikuu hicho hicho mwaka 1918. Inaonekana kwamba Bakhtin alijaribu kupata kukubalika katika duru za kitaaluma kwa kupitisha mambo ya wasifu wa ndugu yake mkubwa. Nikolai Bakhtin alikuwa na elimu ya zamani kutoka kwa mwalimu wake wa Ujerumani na alihitimu kutoka Chuo Kikuu cha Petrograd, ambapo alikuwa mwanafunzi wa classicist maarufu F. F. Zelinskii. Kwa hiyo, tangu ujana wake, Bakhtin alikuwa amefundishwa falsafa. Baada ya Nikolai kuondoka kwenda Crimea, na Mikhail kuhamia Nevel, inaonekana kwamba Kagan alichukua nafasi ya ndugu yake kama mshauri asiye rasmi, na kuwa na ushawishi muhimu juu ya falsafa ya Bakhtin katika mazingira mapya na ya kusisimua ya kitamaduni, ingawa marafiki wawili walienda njia zao tofauti mnamo 1921. Hata hivyo, Kagan alihamia Orel mwaka wa 1921 na kuanza kufundisha katika chuo kikuu cha mkoa kilichokuwa kimeanzishwa hivi karibuni. "Mwaka 1922 alichapisha kitabu cha kwanza cha falsafa kilichochapishwa na mwanachama wa kikundi hicho kabla ya mwishoni mwa miaka ya 1920 na kichwa chake kilikuwa ""Kak Vozmozhna Istorija"" (Historia Inawezekanaje)." Mwaka huo huo alitoa obituary ya Hermann Cohen ambayo alisisitiza mambo ya kihistoria na ya kijamii ya falsafa ya Cohen na aliandika kazi nyingine zisizochapishwa. "Mwaka 1922 pia uliona kuchapishwa kwa karatasi ya Pumpianski ""Dostoevsky na Antiquity,"" mandhari ambayo ilikuwa ya kurudia katika kazi ya Bakhtin kwa miaka mingi." Bakhtin mwenyewe hakutoa kazi yoyote ya msingi hadi 1929, lakini alikuwa akifanya kazi kwa wazi juu ya masuala yanayohusiana na falsafa ya Neo-Kantian na tatizo la uandishi. "Kutoka kwa kitabu chake cha kwanza, ""Iskunstvo i otvetstvennost"" (1919) na sehemu ya kitabu chake cha kwanza cha falsafa ya maadili kilichoandikwa kati ya 1920 na 1924, sasa kinaitwa ""K filosofii postupka"" (Kujenga Falsafa ya Kitendo)." Kazi kubwa ya kikundi hicho ilitengenezwa baada ya kuhamia Leningrad mwaka wa 1924. Inaonekana kwamba huko kikundi hicho kilikuwa na ufahamu mkubwa wa changamoto iliyowekwa na lugha ya Saussurean na maendeleo yake katika kazi ya Formalists. Hivyo kuna kutokea ufahamu mpya wa umuhimu wa falsafa ya lugha katika falsafa na mashairi. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala ya kwanza ya Voloshynov, ""Marxism na Falsafa ya Lugha"" (1929) ni kitabu cha kwanza cha falsafa ya lugha." "Medvedev, ambaye alikuwa amewekwa kuwa msimamizi wa kumbukumbu ya mshairi wa ishara Aleksandr Blok, alishiriki katika majadiliano ya nguvu kati ya Marxist na formalist theorists ya fasihi na mfululizo wa makala na kitabu, ""Mafunzo ya Fomu katika Utafiti wa Fasihi"" (1928), na utafiti wa kwanza wa urefu wa kitabu cha kazi ya Blok." Voloshinov pia alichapisha makala na kitabu (1925-1926) juu ya mjadala ambao ulizunguka Freudianism wakati huo. "Mwaka 1929 Bakhtin alichapisha toleo la kwanza la kitabu chake maarufu ""Problems of Dostoevsky"" (Matatatizo ya Kazi ya Dostoevsky), lakini kazi nyingine nyingi zilizochapishwa kati ya 1924 na 1929 hazikuchapishwa na kwa kawaida hazikukamilika." "Miongoni mwao walikuwa makala muhimu juu ya formalism aitwaye ""Problema soderzhenia i formy v slovesnom khudozhestvennom tvorostvo"" (The Problem of Content, Material and Form in Verbal Artistic Creation) (1924) na kitabu urefu utafiti aitwaye ""Avtor i geroi v estetiches deiateli"" (Mwandishi na Hero katika Aesthetic Activity) (1924-7)."" Tangu miaka ya 1970, kazi zilizochapishwa chini ya majina ya Voloshinov na Medvedev mara nyingi zimetokana na Bakhtin, ambaye hakukubali wala kupinga. "Mwili mkubwa, wenye nia ya kiitikadi, mara nyingi wenye hasira mbaya na kwa kiasi kikubwa usio na maana wa fasihi umekua ili kupinga suala hilo kwa njia moja au nyingine, lakini kwa kuwa hakuna ushahidi halisi wa kupendekeza kwamba waandishi waliochapishwa hawakuwa na jukumu la maandishi ambayo yana majina yao, kunaonekana hakuna kesi halisi ya kujibu.""" Inaonekana kuwa vifaa hivyo viliandikwa kama matokeo ya majadiliano ya kikundi kuhusu masuala haya, ambayo wanachama wa kikundi waliandika kulingana na mtazamo wao wenyewe baadaye. Kuna wazi tofauti nyingi za kifalsafa, kiitikadi na mtindo ambazo, licha ya uwepo wa kufanana na pointi za makubaliano, zinaonyesha kazi hizi tofauti sana zilikuwa kazi ya waandishi tofauti. Kwa mujibu wa falsafa ya Bakhtin mwenyewe, inaonekana kuwa ni mantiki kuwatendea kama replyers katika mazungumzo ya kuendelea kati ya wanachama wa kundi kwa upande mmoja na kati ya kundi na wengine wa mawazo ya kisasa kwa upande mwingine. Kuongezeka kwa uharibifu wa hali ya wasomi wa Sovieti mwishoni mwa mwaka wa 1928 kulivunja mzunguko wa Bakhtin. Bakhtin, ambaye afya yake ilikuwa tayari imeanza kuzorota, alikamatwa, labda kwa sababu ya uhusiano wake na St. Petersburg Religious-Philosophical Society, na kuhukumiwa miaka kumi katika Visiwa vya Solovetsky. Baada ya maombezi ya marafiki wa Bakhtin, ukaguzi mzuri wa kitabu chake cha Dostoyevsky na Kamishna wa Uangavu Lunacharskii na rufaa ya kibinafsi na Maksim Gorsky, hii ilibadilishwa kuwa uhamisho wa miaka sita huko Kazakhstan. "Wakati wa miaka ya 1930 na 1940, wakati wa ukandamizaji wa udhibiti wa habari, Voloshynov alichapisha kitabu cha ""V laborii pisateli"" (Katika Maabara ya Mwandishi) na toleo jipya la utafiti wa Formalism, iliyofanyiwa marekebisho ili kukidhi mahitaji ya kiitikadi ya wakati huo." Medvedev alipewa nafasi ya profesa katika Taasisi ya Leningrad ya Historia na Filolojia, lakini alikamatwa na kutoweka wakati wa vitisho vya 1938. Voloshinov alifanya kazi katika Taasisi ya Pedagogical ya Herzen huko Leningrad hadi 1934 alipopata kifua kikuu. Alikufa katika hospitali ya wagonjwa miaka miwili baadaye akiacha tafsiri isiyo na mwisho ya kitabu cha Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, kitabu ambacho ni muhimu sana katika kazi ya mzunguko. Kagan alikufa mwaka 1937 baada ya kufanya kazi kama mhariri wa encyclopedic atlas ya rasilimali za nishati katika Muungano wa Sovieti kwa miaka mingi. Pumpiansky aliendelea na kazi yake ya mafanikio kama Profesa wa Fasihi katika Chuo Kikuu cha Leningrad, lakini alichapisha makala fupi tu na utangulizi wa kazi za waandishi wa Urusi, hasa Turgenev. Soltynsky alijiunga na Leningrad Philharmonic mnamo 1927 kama mhadhiri, lakini hivi karibuni alijitambulisha kama mmoja wa wataalamu wa muziki wa Sovieti, akitoa zaidi ya makala mia mbili, vitabu na ukaguzi. Alikufa mwaka 1944 kutokana na mshtuko wa moyo, labda kutokana na ukosefu wa chakula wakati wa kuzingirwa kwa Leningrad. Katika miaka ya 1940 na 1940, Bakhtin aliandika makala kadhaa maarufu kama vile: Slovo v romane (Mazungumzo katika Riwaya), Iz predistorije romane slovo (Kutoka Historia ya Riwaya), Epos i roman (Epos na Riwaya), Formy vremeni i kronotopa v romane (Fomu za Wakati na Chronotope katika Riwaya). "Katika miaka ya 1936 na 1938, alimaliza kitabu juu ya ""Bildungsroman"" na umuhimu wake katika historia ya uhalisi, ambayo ilipotea wakati nyumba ya uchapishaji ambapo hati ilikuwa ikisubiri kuchapishwa iliharibiwa katika siku za mwanzo za uvamizi wa Ujerumani wa Muungano wa Sovieti mnamo 1941." Vifaa vya maandalizi vingi, ambavyo vimechapishwa, bado vipo, ingawa sehemu yake imepotea, inadaiwa kwa sababu Bakhtin alitumia kwa karatasi za sigara wakati wa upungufu wa karatasi wakati wa vita. Bakhtin alikuwa na uwezo mkubwa wa kufanya kazi, na alikatwa mguu mwezi Februari 1938. Alikuwa amekuwa akiteseka kwa miaka mingi kutokana na ugonjwa wa mifupa unaoitwa osteomyelitis, ambao ulimfanya awe na maumivu makali, joto kali, na mara nyingi alikuwa amelala kitandani kwa majuma kadhaa. Hii ilikuwa ni sababu ya wito wa marafiki na marafiki wake kwa ajili ya rehema wakati yeye alikuwa uhamishoni ndani ya nchi, sababu ambayo inaweza kuwa na kuokolewa maisha yake. Hata hivyo, hilo halikumzuia asitoe thesis ya udaktari kuhusu Rabelais katika Taasisi ya Gorki ya Fasihi ya Ulimwengu mwaka 1940. Kazi hiyo ilisababisha utata mkubwa katika hali ya hewa ya kiitikadi ya wakati huo na haikuwa hadi 1951 kwamba Bakhtin hatimaye alipewa sifa ya kandidat. Kitabu hicho hakikuchapishwa hadi mwaka wa 1965. Kipindi kati ya kukamilika kwa utafiti wa Rabelais na toleo la pili la utafiti wa Dostoyevsky mnamo 1963 labda ni kipindi kisichojulikana sana cha maisha ya Bakhtin katika suala la kazi iliyozalishwa. Hii imerekebishwa hivi karibuni (1996) na kuchapishwa kwa vifaa vya kumbukumbu kutoka kipindi hiki, wakati Bakhtin alikuwa akifanya kazi kama mhadhiri katika Taasisi ya Pedagogical ya Mordov. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala ya Stalin ""Marxism na Maswali ya Linguistics"" (1953) ni muhimu sana kwa ajili ya utafiti wa lugha ya Kisovieti." Vipande vingine vingi vipo kutoka wakati huu, ikiwa ni pamoja na maelezo kwa makala iliyopangwa kuhusu Maiakovskii na maoni zaidi ya mbinu juu ya utafiti wa riwaya. Katika hali ya uhuru zaidi ya kile kinachoitwa "kuyeyusha" kufuatia kuingia kwa Khrushchev, kazi ya Bakhtin juu ya Dostoyevsky ilikuja kwa umakini wa kikundi cha wasomi wachanga wakiongozwa na Vadim Kozhinov ambaye, baada ya kugundua kwamba alikuwa bado hai, aliwasiliana na Bakhtin na kujaribu kumshawishi kuchapisha kitabu cha Dostoyevsky cha 1929. Baada ya kusita kwa mara ya kwanza, Bakhtin alijibu kwa kupanua kwa kiasi kikubwa na kubadilisha kabisa mradi wote. Kitabu hicho kilikubaliwa kuchapishwa Septemba 1963 na kilipokelewa vyema. Uchapishaji wa utafiti wa Rabelais, uliorekebishwa upya kwa madhumuni ya kukubalika (hasa kupunguzwa kwa scatology na uchambuzi wa hotuba ya Lenin) ulifuata muda mfupi baadaye. Baadaye, Bakhtin alilazwa katika hospitali ya Moscow, na mnamo Mei 1970, yeye na mkewe, ambaye alikufa mwaka mmoja baadaye, walihamishwa kwenye nyumba ya uzeeni nje ya Moscow. Bakhtin aliendelea kufanya kazi hadi kabla ya kifo chake mnamo 1975, akitoa kazi ya tabia ya kimetodolojia. Tangu kifo cha Bakhtin, makusanyo kadhaa ya kazi yake yameonekana katika Kirusi na tafsiri nyingi zimefuata. Tafsiri za Kiingereza zimekuwa zikichapishwa tangu mwaka 1968, ingawa ubora wa tafsiri na utaratibu wa kuchapishwa haukuwa sawa. Watafsiri kumi tofauti wamechapisha kazi ya mwandishi ambaye maneno yake ni maalum sana, mara nyingi akitoa dhana muhimu kwa njia mbalimbali. Hii imezidisha matatizo ya tafsiri na maswali ya urithi wa nadharia, hasa kwa kuwa kuna tofauti kali sana kati ya kazi zilizoandikwa kabla na baada ya utafiti wa Dostoyevsky wa 1929. "Tatizo jingine limekuwa ni maswali ya uandishi wa mzunguko wa Bakhtin na kiasi gani msamiati wa Marxist katika kazi za Voloshinov na Medvedev unapaswa kuchukuliwa kwa thamani ya uso. """ Kwa mfano, wale wanaodai kwamba Bakhtin ndiye mwandishi wa kazi hizi pia huwa na hoja kwamba msamiati ni tu 'kuvalia dirisha' ili kuwezesha uchapishaji, wakati wale wanaounga mkono uhalisi wa machapisho ya awali pia huwa na kuchukua hoja za Marxist kwa uzito. Kama matokeo waandishi kuhusu Bakhtin wamekuwa na mwelekeo wa kuchagua kipindi kimoja cha kazi ya Bakhtin na kuitendea kama ya mwisho, mazoezi ambayo yamezalisha matoleo mbalimbali tofauti ya mawazo ya "Bakhtinian". Kuonekana hivi karibuni kwa buku la kwanza la kazi zilizokusanywa katika Kirusi kunaweza kusaidia kushinda matatizo ambayo yamekuwa yakishikilia masomo ya Bakhtin. 2. Uwezekano wa kupata "Mwaka wa 19 na 19 wa utawala wa Bakhtin, ""Mzunguko wa Bakhtin"" ulijulikana kama ""Mzunguko wa Bakhtin.""" Maswali ambayo yanaonekana kuwa na umuhimu maalum sana, kama vile njia ya uhusiano wa mwandishi-mwigizaji, kwa kweli yanahusisha maswali ya asili ya jumla zaidi, inayojumuisha mahusiano ya thamani kati ya mada na kitu, mada na mada nyingine. Hoja za kihistoria zilizowasilishwa na Bakhtin mchanga zinaelekezwa dhidi ya abstraktions ya falsafa ya busara na positivism ya kisasa. Alijifunza kutoka kwa kazi ya shule ya Marburg (Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), Paul Natorp (1854-1924), na Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950) na wanahistoria wa Ujerumani kama vile Max Scheler (1874-1928) na Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936). Hata hivyo, ni vigumu sana kufuatilia ushawishi halisi wa waandishi hawa kwa sababu Bakhtin alikuwa na sifa mbaya katika kuamini vyanzo vyake na hakuwa na kinyume cha kunakili vifungu vyote ambavyo alikuwa ametafsiri kutoka Kijerumani hadi Kirusi katika kazi zake bila rejea ya awali. Hii imesababisha wachambuzi wengi ama kukisia ushawishi juu ya Bakhtin mchanga au kumpa sifa ya uvumbuzi wa msamiati wa kifalsafa karibu kutoka kwa chochote. Hata hivyo, kazi ya hivi karibuni ya kumbukumbu ya Brian Poole imefunua vitabu vya kumbukumbu ambavyo Bakhtin alifanya maelezo mengi kutoka kwa wanafalsafa mbalimbali wa Ujerumani ambao hutupa wazo bora la vyanzo vya mawazo yake na asili ya kazi ya kifalsafa ambayo ilitokana na mchanganyiko wake wa mawazo tofauti. Mawazo ya Shule ya Marburg bila shaka yalifikishwa kwa Bakhtin kupitia kazi za Matvei Kagan aliporudi kutoka Ujerumani mwishoni mwa Vita vya Kwanza vya Ulimwengu. Katika kumbukumbu yake ya Cohen Kagan alisisitiza mambo ya kidini, ya kimesiya ya falsafa ya wa kwanza, ambayo inatokea katika kazi yake ya baadaye. Kwa marehemu Cohen, <unk> umoja wa kuwa lengo, kama mchakato mkubwa usio na mwisho wa umoja wa kuwa na dhana inahitaji umoja mdogo usio na mwisho wa mtu mmoja... Tatizo lote la dini liko katika tatizo la mtu binafsi kama ilivyo katika swali la Mungu.Uhusiano wa daima kati ya mtu binafsi na Mungu ni kipengele cha kabisa cha ubinafsi na ni umoja wa monotheism. Mtu binafsi hajiunganishi na Mungu bali daima ana uhusiano na Mungu. Hii ina umuhimu wa kijamii, kwa sababu dini hukua kutoka kwa maadili: <unk>dini ya umoja wa ubinadamu ni monotheism.... Dini iko kila mahali, katika maeneo yote ya utamaduni.... "Kugundua kwamba kuna uhusiano kati ya ""mtazamo wa mtu binafsi"" na ""mtazamo wa mtu binafsi"" ni jambo la msingi katika historia ya fasihi ya Kirusi, na kwamba kuna uhusiano kati ya ""mtazamo wa mtu binafsi"" na ""mtazamo wa mtu binafsi"" katika historia ya fasihi ya Kirusi." (M. Kagan, German Kogen, 1922) Umoja wa mtu binafsi unategemea umoja wa watu na hii kwa upande wake inategemea umoja wa Mungu. Hata iwe vigumu kumfuatilia mtangulizi wake wa karibu, hakuna shaka kwamba mradi wa falsafa wa Bakhtin ulidumisha uhusiano wa msingi na mapokeo ya urembo wa Enlightenment na kwa Kantianism haswa. Kama kwa Kant, aesthetic ni kutofautishwa na yake <unk>disinterestedness,<unk> uncoupling ya purposiveness kutoka uwakilishi wa mwisho. Kant alishughulika na hukumu ya aesthetic, lakini Bakhtin alikuwa na nia ya shughuli ya aesthetic ambayo inaweza kusaidia kuanzisha hali ya mahusiano ya mwingiliano ya msingi muhimu ya kuzalisha umoja wa karibu wa watu ambao maalum hauhatarishi. Mradi huu, ambao unabaki mara kwa mara katika kazi yake yote, huchukua aina mbalimbali. Aesthetic ni ulimwengu ambapo sasa detached kutoka "juu tukio la kuwa" na "finalized" kwa sababu ya mwandishi wa "exteriority" (vnenakhodimost), thamani-laden kiini cha matendo ya shujaa ni kuonekana. Kama shughuli ya shujaa haikuwa objectified na mwandishi basi yeye ingekuwa kubaki katika baadhi ya mkondo wa daima ya ufahamu, kabisa oblivious kwa umuhimu pana wa vitendo hivyo. Hata hivyo, ili kuelezea maana ya matendo hayo, mwandishi lazima pia kuwa na ufahamu wa ulimwengu wa mtu binafsi wa shujaa, upeo wake, uwanja wa maoni na maslahi (krugozor). Ni njia sahihi tu ya hisia-mwenzi na objectification inaweza kuzalisha aina ya uzalishaji wote Bakhtin anafikiria. Matatizo kadhaa hutokea kutokana na mfano huu. "Bakhtin anaonekana kutaka kutumia mfano wa mwandishi-mwigizaji kama kanuni ya ""mwisho"" ndani ya jamii na kama mfano wa mahusiano katika uandishi wa fasihi." Katika mfano wa kwanza wa mwandishi na mashujaa hubadilisha majukumu yao daima, mtazamo wa kipekee wa kila mada inaruhusu objectification ya wengine isipokuwa mwenyewe, ambaye ni objectified na wengine. Ingawa dhana hiyo haionekani katika kazi za mapema, kuanzia 1928 na kuendelea mazungumzo huwa mfano wa mwingiliano kama huo: mtu hupata ufahamu wa nafasi yake mwenyewe ndani ya jumla kupitia mazungumzo, ambayo husaidia kutoa ufahamu kwa wengine wakati huo huo. Hii ni mfano mzuri sana maadamu mahusiano hubaki sawa. Hata hivyo, mfano wa mwandishi-mwigizaji pia unadhani usawa wa msingi katika kwamba shujaa wa kazi hawezi kamwe kuwa na uhakika wa faida ya mwingiliano kutoka ambayo kuifanya mwandishi na hivyo muumba. Kuna tofauti muhimu kati ya mtu-kwa-mtu na mtu-kwa-Mungu uhusiano ambayo mfano Bakhtin yaonekana kuficha. Kwa kuongezea, mfano wa Bakhtin wa mtazamo wa kipekee wa kila mwandishi, ambao unatokana na mfano wa Kantian wa ufahamu wa mtu binafsi unaoongoza makundi ya a priori yanayokutana na kutoa umbo kwa hisia nyingi, inahatarishwa sana wakati mtu anakubali mwelekeo wa kijamii na lugha katika usawa. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala ya Voloshynov ya 1926 ""Uzungumzo katika Maisha na Ushairi.""" Mbadala iliyopitishwa na Voloshinov inaangazia mwelekeo wa sauti ya lugha ambayo inaonyesha uhusiano wa kipekee wa tathmini kati ya somo na kitu. Lugha iliyofungwa ndani ya shughuli za kila siku za vitendo hutolewa, au kuachiliwa, kutoka kwa uhusiano wake na "tukio la wazi la kuwa" na mwandishi ambaye kisha hufikiria juu yake, kutoka kwa mtazamo wake wa kipekee, akionyesha maana yake ya jumla ya intonational. Lugha ya shujaa ni mgeni kwa mwandishi na kwa hiyo ni kukomaa kwa objectification; jamii muhimu ni nje ya mwisho. "Kujishughulisha na kipimo hiki cha intonational inaruhusu kukutana kwa fahamu mbili kuzungumziwa katika hali ya kawaida badala ya lugha, na kwa hivyo inaruhusu Bakhtin kukabiliana na kile anaita ""theoreticism,"" mwelekeo wa kuzingatia maana ya ndani ya hatua na kipekee yake ya kihistoria kwa kujitenga na kila mmoja." Hii inaweza kujumuisha mwelekeo wa Hegel wa kuona tukio fulani kuwa na maana tu kama mfano wa kufunuliwa kwa sababu, Husserl's sublation ya mahusiano ya kati ya watu katika subjectivity ya transcendental au dhana ya positivist kwamba uainishaji wa jambo ni wa kutosha kuelezea jambo hilo. "Kutoka kwa Voloshynov, ""Slovo v zhizni i slovo v poezii"" (Slowo v zhizni i slovo v poezii, ""Kuzungumza katika Maisha na Kuzungumza katika Mashairi: Maswali ya Mashairi ya Jamii"") ni kitabu cha kwanza cha fasihi ya kisayansi kilichoandikwa na Voloshynov katika mwaka wa 1926 katika Taasisi ya Utamaduni wa Vifaa, Sanaa na Maneno huko Leningrad." Kazi hii, ambayo imeonekana kama mfano wa mapema wa pragmatics na zaidi ya msemaji mmoja, ni kazi ya kwanza ya mzunguko kuwasilishwa kama maandishi ya wazi ya Marxist. Mwandishi anajaribu kufafanua aesthetic kama fomu maalum ya mwingiliano wa kijamii sifa na yake <unk> kukamilika kwa uumbaji wa kazi ya kisanii na kwa recreations yake ya kuendelea katika utambuzi co-kuunda na haina haja ya objectifications nyingine yoyote<unk>. Katika kazi ya kisanii tathmini za kijamii zisizotajwa ni "kufupishwa" na kuamua fomu ya kisanii. Sifa za kina za muundo wa mwingiliano fulani wa kijamii zinaonyeshwa katika kazi ya kisanii iliyofanikiwa; kama Voloshinov anavyosema, "fomu inapaswa kuwa tathmini ya kusadikisha ya yaliyomo" (Bakhtin School Papers ed. Shukman, Colchester, 1983 (p. Mwanzoni Bakhtinian phenomenology sasa ni recast katika suala la mwingiliano discursive, na hasa sociological mfumo wa rejea. Mradi mwingine wa Voloshinov ulikuwa jibu muhimu kwa psychoanalysis ya mwanzo na majaribio ya kisasa ya kujaribu mchanganyiko wa Marxism na Freudianism. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika kitabu chake cha kwanza, ""Freudism: Kriticheski Okerk"" (Freudism: A Critical Sketch), Freud alishirikiana na wengine katika kuunda nadharia ya ""Sosial"" (Sasa Zaidi ya Jamii) ambayo ilionyesha kwamba Freud alikuwa na mawazo ya ""kuondoa kiikolojia"" na ""subjectivism.""" Kwa kutegemea uchambuzi wa kijamii wa lugha na utamaduni, Voloshinov anasisitiza kwamba intersubjectivity inatawala subjectivity kama hiyo na kwamba wote maana ya uzalishaji na hivyo kukandamiza maana ni kijamii-ideolojia badala ya mtu binafsi na kibiolojia kama Freud walidhani. Hata hivyo, ni lazima ieleweke kwamba Voloshinov hajali kazi ya baadaye ya Freud juu ya matukio ya kitamaduni na hivyo inatoa mtazamo wa upande mmoja wa saikolojia ya kisasa. Zaidi ya hayo, Freudianism ni kutibiwa kama maonyesho ya <unk> bourgeois kuoza <unk> sana katika roho ya baadaye Lukács. Hii inaonyesha kugeuka kuelekea mbinu zaidi ya Hegelian kwa maswali ya maendeleo ya kitamaduni na kifalsafa, wakati kurekebisha ya Freudian superego katika suala la kukandamiza nadharia zisizo rasmi na nadharia rasmi inatarajia moja ya mandhari kuu ambayo ingekuwa kuchukua Bakhtin katika 1930s na 1940s. 3. Uwe na mtazamo wa kweli "Katika miaka ya 1920 na 1920, ""Mabadiliko ya kijamii na lugha"" yaliyotambuliwa na makala ya Voloshinov juu ya mazungumzo yalianza kuunda shule tofauti ya mawazo ambayo lugha ilikuwa kiashiria cha mahusiano ya kijamii na ufunuo wa mtazamo wa ulimwengu wa kiitikadi." "Wakati huo, utafiti wa lugha wa Voloshinov ulikuwa muhimu kwa mwelekeo huu mpya, moja ya ushawishi kuu juu ya kikundi wakati huo ilikuwa kazi ya Ernst Kassirer, ambaye ""Falsafa ya Fomu za Alama"" ilichapishwa kati ya 1923 na 1929." Moja ya miradi ya Voloshinov isiyo na mwisho, ambayo alianza wakati katika Chuo Kikuu, ilikuwa tafsiri ya kiasi cha kwanza cha kazi ya Cassirer juu ya lugha. Buku hili liliashiria kilele cha Cassirer kuondoka kutoka Marburg Neo-Kantianism kwa Hegelian kurekebisha ya Kant. Kwa kutumia mwelekeo wa dialectical wa Hegel, mbinu ya mageuzi ya maarifa ya binadamu na kuwepo na mkusanyiko wa jumla ya shughuli za binadamu, Cassirer alitafuta kushinda upendeleo wa lengo la Kantian juu ya michakato ya kufikiri ya busara ya binadamu. Wakati huo huo, Cassirer alijitahidi kupinga Hegelian subsumption ya ulimwengu wote wa roho ya binadamu katika Absolute kwa kudumisha tofauti Kantian kati ya "lugha" ya roho ya binadamu. Kwa kusudi hili, Cassirer alitumia utambulisho wa Herder na von Humboldt wa mawazo na maana, akiona "kazi ya ishara" kama kipengele cha kawaida kwa maeneo yote ya maarifa, lakini ambayo ilichukua fomu maalum katika kila moja yao. Ukweli, Cassirer na Hegel walikubaliana, ni mzima, lakini wa kwanza alielewa hii kumaanisha kwamba kila moja ya mitazamo inayotolewa na aina mbalimbali za ishara ni halali sawa na lazima hatua kwa hatua <unk> kufunguliwa <unk> ili kujieleza kikamilifu. Maelezo hayo, kama tutakavyoona, yalikuwa na athari kubwa juu ya kazi ya baadaye ya Bakhtin, lakini kuna ishara za ushawishi wake karibu mara moja katika kazi ya kikundi hicho. Mwaka 1928 P.N. Medvedev alichapisha kitabu kirefu cha kukosoa Utaratibu wa Urusi. Kazi hii huanza na ufafanuzi wa udadisi wa fasihi kama "tawi moja ya utafiti wa itikadi", utafiti ambao "unajumuisha maeneo yote ya ubunifu wa itikadi ya mwanadamu". "Medvedev anaendelea kusema kwamba wakati Marxism imeanzisha msingi wa utafiti kama huo, ikiwa ni pamoja na uhusiano wake na mambo ya kiuchumi, utafiti wa ""sifa za kipekee na utu wa ubora wa kila tawi la uumbaji wa itikadi"" sayansi, sanaa, maadili, dini, na kadhalika." <unk> bado ni katika hatua ya kiinitete <unk> (p.3). Licha ya kubadilishwa kwa "maumbo ya ishara" na "matawi ya uumbaji wa itikadi" mwendelezo wa mbinu ni wazi. Ambapo Cassirer alitafuta kuchunguza kazi ya ishara kama "sababishi ambayo inarudi katika kila fomu ya msingi ya kitamaduni lakini katika hakuna mbili inachukua kabisa sura sawa" (vol. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala ya kwanza ya kitabu chake, Medvedev alitafuta kuchunguza ""sheria za kijamii za maendeleo"" ambazo zinaweza kupatikana katika kila ""tawi"" la ""uumbaji wa itikadi"" lakini ambayo huonekana kwa njia maalum." Utaratibu huu wa kisosiolojia wa kazi ya Cassirer ulionekana sana katika kazi ya Bakhtin kutoka miaka ya 1930 na 1940, ambapo, kama Poole alionyesha, vifungu vingi visivyojulikana kutoka kwa kazi ya kwanza vinaonekana katika tafsiri ya Kirusi ndani ya mwili wa kazi ya mwisho. Medvedev aliona kwamba Formalists walikuwa sahihi katika kujaribu kufafanua sifa maalum ya uumbaji wa fasihi, lakini walikuwa na makosa ya msingi katika mbinu ya positivist walichukua kuelekea vifaa vya fasihi ambayo ilisababisha kufuta mtazamo wa kiitikadi, maana na hivyo jamii ya aina ya fasihi. Kwa kumalizia Medvedev alipendekeza kwamba formalists kutibiwa kwa heshima na kwa uzito, hata kama premises yao ya msingi walikuwa makosa. "Kutetea kwa Marxism, alisema, inapaswa ""kuchukulia Formalism kama kitu cha ukosoaji mkubwa ambao msingi wa kwanza unaweza kufafanuliwa.""" Wakati akipiga kura kwa ukosoaji mkali wa Formalist wa Urusi kwa msingi wa muungano wao wa chama na harakati ya Futurist na kushiriki mwelekeo wake kuelekea uharibifu wa nihilistic wa maana, Medvedev hasa alisifu Western 'formalist scholarship' kama vile kazi ya Hildebrand, Wölflin na Worringer. Wanatheolojia hawa walikuwa muhimu kwa maendeleo ya mzunguko wa Bakhtin kwa sababu walitendea mabadiliko ya aina za kisanii na mitindo kama mabadiliko ya "tamani ya kisanii", ambayo ni, kuwa na umuhimu wa kiitikadi. Worringer aliona historia ya sanaa kuwa imewekwa alama na kubadilishana kwa asili (empathy) na abstraction (kujitenga) ambayo inahusiana na maelewano au vinginevyo katika uhusiano wa mtu na mazingira yake. Ingawa mambo ya rasmi na ya tathmini si sawa, huwa na uhusiano wa karibu na hii, Medvedev alimaliza, inaweza kutumika kwa fomu ya fasihi kama vile sanaa ya kuona. "Sura hii, pamoja na baadhi ya vifungu vidogo vya kitabu hicho, iliondolewa katika toleo la pili la kitabu hicho kilichochapishwa na jina ""Formalism I Formalist"" mwaka 1934." Kufikia wakati huu mtazamo wa uvumilivu kuelekea Formalists au usomi wa Magharibi haukuruhusiwa, na hivyo sura ya ziada na ya uadui sana inayoitwa "The Collapse of Formalism" ilijumuishwa. Waandishi wa zamani wa Bakhtin Circle walikuwa na mwelekeo wa kumpa Bakhtin toleo la kwanza na Medvedev toleo la pili, lakini ni wazi kwamba mwili wa toleo la pili ni toleo lililopunguzwa la toleo la kwanza. "Mfano wa Dostoyevsky ulipatikana katika kitabu cha Bakhtin ""Problems of Dostoyevsky"" (Matatatizo ya Kazi ya Dostoyevsky) mwaka 1929." Hapa mwandishi mkuu wa karne ya kumi na tisa'siri ya maneno na mara nyingi itikio ni downplayed kwa niaba ya yake 'umbo-kuunda itikadi' ambayo inaonekana kuwa imbued na roho ya kidemokrasia kina. Bakhtin anawashambulia wakosoaji hao, kama vile Engelgardt, ambao walionyesha mbinu ya ubunifu ya Dostoyevsky kama ya Hegelian. Katika mpango kama huo, nafasi mbili hupigana kwa ajili ya utawala, lakini zinabadilishwa kuwa mchanganyiko mwishoni; hata hivyo, kulingana na Bakhtin, hakuna kuunganishwa kwa sauti katika sauti ya mwisho, yenye mamlaka kama katika Hegelian. Dostoyevsky haonyeshi mbinu ya kujadiliana isiyo ya kawaida bali mazungumzo ya sauti zisizounganishwa, kila moja ikipewa haki sawa. "Bakhtin alifuata mwandishi wa karne ya kumi na tisa wa Ujerumani Otto Ludwig katika kutaja aina hii ya mazungumzo ""mjadala wa polyphonic,"" ambayo inaruhusu msisitizo wa Cassirer juu ya aina nyingi za utamaduni kupanuliwa kwa idadi kubwa ya mazungumzo katika jamii na riwaya." Katika mwendo wa riwaya za Dostoyevsky, Bakhtin anadai, sana katika roho ya Cassirer, maoni ya ulimwengu ya mashujaa wa Dostoyevsky <unk> kufunuliwa <unk>, kuwasilisha mtazamo wao wa kipekee juu ya ulimwengu. Mwandishi wa riwaya haifanyi, kama ilivyo kwa Tolstoy, kuzamisha nafasi zote chini ya mtazamo mmoja wa mamlaka, lakini inaruhusu sauti ya msimuliaji kuishi kando ya sauti za wahusika, bila kutoa mamlaka kubwa kwa sauti hiyo kuliko kwa nyingine yoyote. Sauti hukutana na kuingiliana, zikijitokeza kwa kila mmoja miundo yao ya kiitikadi, uwezo, upendeleo na mipaka. Maono ya mapema ya Bakhtin sasa yametafsiriwa katika maneno ya usemi. Wakati Bakhtin alikuwa awali wasiwasi na mahusiano intersubjective na modalities ya mwandishi na mashujaa mwingiliano, hii sasa ni kuchunguzwa katika suala la jinsi ambayo lugha moja hukutana na nyingine, kuripoti na kurekebisha usemi kwa reaccentuating yake. Njia za mwingiliano huanzia stylization hadi parody wazi, ambayo Bakhtin hutumia sehemu kubwa ya kitabu cha kuorodhesha. Kama tu toleo la baadaye la kitabu (1963) imekuwa kuchapishwa katika Kiingereza, kuna mwelekeo wa kuchanganyikiwa mfuatano wa kuibuka kwa Bakhtin'mawazo muhimu. Ni lazima ieleweke kwamba hakuna tafakari juu ya carnival au juu ya Menippean Satire katika toleo la kwanza la utafiti Dostoyevsky. Sifa hizi zilitokea tu katika muongo uliofuata kuhusiana na historia ya riwaya kama aina. Toleo la kwanza la utafiti wa Dostoyevsky ni monograph juu ya kazi ya mwandishi maarufu katika maneno ambayo katika mambo mengi kujumuisha poetics ya sehemu kubwa ya kisasa "msafiri mwenzake" kuandika. "Kama inavyozingatiwa katika muktadha wake wa kihistoria, utafiti wa Dostoyevsky unaweza kuonekana kama aina ya ulinzi wa nyuma wa uhuru katika uwanja wa kitamaduni dhidi ya uvamizi wa udhibiti wa kisiasa. """ Kitabu hicho kilichapishwa kabla ya utawala wa kidikteta wa RAPP, wakati watetezi wa "utamaduni wa proletari" walipopewa uhuru na uongozi wa Stalinist wa Chama cha Kikomunisti cha Sovieti. Majaribio rasmi na msimamo wa hadithi usiofaa ulichukuliwa kuwa wa kushoto, wakati kazi ya Bakhtin ilitetea uwasilishaji wa maoni mengi bila kufungwa kwa "monologic". Sifa za rasmi za kazi zilikuwa zenyewe za umuhimu wa kiitikadi, lakini mwelekeo wa mwitikio ulikuwa katika kulazimisha mtazamo wa umoja juu ya jamii tofauti ya maoni. Upimaji wa semiotic wa mwelekeo mpya wa Mzunguko wa Bakhtin uliendelezwa wakati huo huo na Voloshinov. Katika mfululizo wa makala kati ya 1928 na 1930, punctuated na kuonekana kwa kitabu-urefu Marxism na Philosophy ya Lugha (Marxism na Falsafa ya Lugha) katika 1929 (Toleo la pili 1930), Voloshynov kuchapishwa uchambuzi wa uhusiano kati ya lugha na itikadi ya ubunifu kwa miongo kadhaa. "Voschenko alitoa maoni yake juu ya ""objectivism"" (yaani, ""objectivism ya kujitegemea"") na ""individualism"" (yaani, ""subjectivism ya mtu binafsi"") iliyoundwa na Wilhelm von Humboldt na Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) na Karl Wossler (1872-1942)."" Voloshinov anasema kwamba mwenendo huo unaanzia katika rationalism na romanticism na unashiriki nguvu na udhaifu wa harakati hizo. "Wakati wa kwanza hutambua tabia ya mfumo na kijamii ya lugha, yeye hutumia ""mfumo wa aina zinazofanana"" kwa chanzo cha matumizi ya lugha katika jamii; yeye huondoa lugha kutoka kwa muktadha halisi wa kihistoria wa matumizi yake (Bakhtin's theoreticism); sehemu inachunguzwa kwa gharama ya jumla; kipengele cha lugha cha mtu binafsi hutendewa kama ""kitu"" kwa gharama ya nguvu ya hotuba; umoja wa maana ya neno unadhaniwa kwa kupuuza wingi wa maana na lafudhi na lugha hutendewa kama mfumo wa tayari." Mwelekeo wa mwisho ni sahihi katika kutazama lugha kama mchakato wa kuzalisha unaoendelea na kudai kuwa mchakato huu una maana, lakini ni makosa ya msingi katika kutambua sheria za uumbaji huo na zile za saikolojia ya mtu binafsi, kuona mchakato wa kuzalisha kama sawa na sanaa na kutibu mfumo wa ishara kama ganda la uumbaji. Voloshynov anasema kwamba mfumo thabiti wa ishara za lugha ni tu sayansi abstract; mchakato generative ya lugha ni kutekelezwa katika kijamii-maususi mwingiliano wa wasemaji; sheria ya kizazi lugha ni sheria za kijamii; ingawa lugha na sanaa ubunifu si coincide, ubunifu lazima kueleweka kuhusiana na maana ya kiitikadi na maadili kwamba kujaza lugha na kwamba muundo wa kila utoaji halisi ni muundo wa kijamii. "Walalamikaji kadhaa wamebainisha jinsi mbinu ya Voloshinov ya lugha inavyotarajia upinzani mwingi wa falsafa ya lugha iliyotolewa na Poststructuralists ya leo, lakini inafanya hivyo bila kuomba relativism ya mengi ya mwisho au kutokuwa na maana ya Derrida's ""hors text"" Voloshinov huanzisha kwa uthabiti asili ya ishara ya ufahamu na asili ya mabadiliko ya mfumo wa lugha, lakini badala ya kuona mada kama imegawanyika na ukweli wa tofauti, yeye anaweka kila usemi kuwa ""microcosm ya mgogoro wa kijamii.""" Hii inaruhusu muundo wa kijamii na wingi wa hotuba kuhusishwa kulingana na maendeleo ya kihistoria ya umoja. Kwa maana hii ukosoaji wa Voloshinov unafanana sana na maelezo ya kiongozi wa Kikomunisti wa Italia Antonio Gramsci juu ya utawala katika Vitabu vyake vya Gereza. Kama Voloshinov na Bakhtin, Gramsci alitegemea kazi ya Croce na Vossler na Matteo Bartoli's Saussurean <unk>spatial linguistics<unk>, na kuunganisha na kusoma kwa Hegelian ya Marxism. Hata hivyo, kama tulivyoona, Voloshinov aliathiriwa sana na kazi ya Cassirer, ambaye alipendezwa sana na kazi ya von Humboldt, mwanzilishi wa lugha ya kizazi. Hivyo ukosoaji wa Voloshinov ulikabiliwa na pole ya kimapenzi ya utafiti wa lugha badala ya kuchukua nafasi ya usawa alidai katika utafiti wake. Hii inaweza kuonekana katika mwelekeo wa kuona makundi ya kijamii kama masomo ya pamoja badala ya makundi yaliyofafanuliwa na taasisi na madai kama yale ambayo yanaonyesha maana ya neno ni "kuamuliwa kabisa" na muktadha wake. Nini Voloshinov inafanya kwa ufanisi ni kuongeza utambuzi wa Humboldt wa kutofautiana kwa lugha ya mtu binafsi na ya kitaifa na mwelekeo wa kijamii. Humboldt ya "ndani-umbo" ya lugha ni recast kama uhusiano wa hotuba, dialogism. Akiacha tofauti ya Marxist kati ya msingi na superstructure, Voloshinov anafuata Cassirer na Hegel katika kuona aina ya aina za lugha kama usemi wa kiini moja. Ni muhimu kwamba Gramsci, ambaye alichukua epistemolojia ya pragmatist kwa uthabiti, alifuata njia hiyo hiyo na akajitokeza na formula zinazofanana kwa kushangaza. Hii inaonyesha kwamba mahusiano kati ya kazi ya shule ya Bakhtin na Marxism ni wale ambao ni tata na anastahili uchunguzi wa karibu. Wale ambao wamejaribu kujenga ukuta wa Kichina kati ya mwelekeo huu au ambao wamejaribu kuutambua, wameshindwa kila wakati kufanya haki kwa mazungumzo haya ya kifalsafa. Baadhi yao hata wameenda mbali sana kuona kazi ya kikundi kama msingi wa kupambana na Hegelian, malipo ambayo kuanguka mara moja mtu kufuatilia matumizi ya terminolojia katika kazi kutoka mwishoni mwa 1920. 4. Uwe na uhakika Bakhtin na nadharia ya riwaya: 1933-1941 Mabadiliko katika mawazo ya Bakhtin kutoka Kant kuelekea Hegel ni mahali popote wazi kuliko katika kazi zake kuu juu ya riwaya. Hii inaweza kuonekana katika kipaumbele kipya Bakhtin anatoa kwa historia ya fasihi ambayo Kant alikuwa kwa kiasi kikubwa upole. Kama kwamba kusisitiza deni lake kwa idealism ya Ujerumani, Bakhtin inachukua sifa zote za riwaya kama aina cataloged na Goethe, Schlegel na Hegel na marekebisho kidogo na kufuatilia jinsi <unk>essence<unk> ya aina <unk> inaonekana<unk> juu ya kozi ya muda. Maendeleo ya riwaya hiyo yanaelezwa kwa njia inayofanana na "maumbo ya ishara" ya Cassirer ambayo hufunuliwa ili kuwasilisha mtazamo wao wa kipekee wa ulimwengu ambao ni toleo lililobadilishwa la sifa ya Hegel ya Phenomenology ya Roho kama uwakilishi wa "maarifa yanayoonekana". Wakati huo huo, hata hivyo, riwaya inachukua sifa nyingi za jukumu la falsafa ya Hegel katika mavazi yake ya Cassireran kama falsafa ya utamaduni. Falsafa kama hiyo, Cassirer alidai, haijaribu kwenda nyuma ya ulimwengu mbalimbali wa picha zilizoundwa na roho ya kibinadamu lakini <unk>kuelewa na kueleza kanuni yao ya msingi ya kuunda<unk> (The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms vol. Lugha 1, p.113). Riwaya, kulingana na mpango ulioundwa na Bakhtin, inafafanua kanuni hii kwa kuzingatia aina zingine za fasihi na mazungumzo ya kijamii na ya itikadi. "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, ""kitabu lazima kiwakilishe sauti zote za itikadi za enzi yake, lugha zote za enzi ambazo zina madai yoyote ya kuwa muhimu.""" Riwaya ni fomu ya ishara, lakini moja maalum ambayo "kanuni ya msingi ya kuunda" ya fomu za ishara inakuwa inayoonekana. Lugha ya kitaifa ya kijamii, heteroglossia yenyewe, inakuwa heteroglossia kwa ajili yake mwenyewe badala ya mawazo kujiona kama kitu chake mwenyewe katika kilele cha Hegel's Phenomenology. Kwa Bakhtin, riwaya hiyo inaweka wazi kanuni ya kuunda ya mazungumzo, uhusiano wake, mazungumzo, bila kutoa lugha ya mwisho ya ukweli kama ile inayounda dhana ya Hegel. Riwaya hiyo inakuwa kitu kinachofanana na visio intellectualis ya aina ambayo Cassirer alipata katika kazi ya Nicholas Cusanus. "Hii ni jumla ambayo inajumuisha maoni yote mbalimbali katika accidentality na umuhimu wake, ""kitu kuonekana na njia na mwelekeo wa kuona"" (Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, 1963, p.32)." Hakuna mtazamo wa mtu binafsi unaofaa kwa jumla yenyewe, kwa sababu tu jumla halisi ya mtazamo inaweza kuwakilisha jumla: Lugha za heteroglossia, kama vioo vinavyokabiliana, kila moja ambayo kwa njia yake inaonyesha kipande kidogo, kona ndogo ya ulimwengu, hutufanya tufikirie na kuelewa nyuma ya pande zao za kutafakari kwa ulimwengu ambao ni pana zaidi, wa ngazi nyingi na wa upeo wa macho kuliko ingekuwa kwa lugha moja, kioo kimoja. "Bakhtin Voprosy Literatury i Estetikop (Bakhtin Voprosy Literatury i Estetikop) ni kitabu cha fasihi cha Kijerumani cha mwaka 1930 kilichoandikwa na mwanasayansi wa fasihi wa Kijerumani, na kinachohusu ""maadili ya uhuru"" katika mazingira ya hali ya hewa ya Weimar Ujerumani." Mwandishi wa riwaya sasa anakuwa mrithi wa mkakati wa utamaduni wa watu wa kupinga mamlaka ili kuondoa madai ya lugha rasmi na itikadi na kuanzisha mchakato wa kujifunza wa umma. Mbele ya mkakati huu si Ujerumani bourgeois liberalism lakini Urusi populism (narodnichestvo). Hivyo, dialectic ya miujiza na muhimu ya ishara ambayo Cassirer outlined katika falsafa yake sasa inakuwa fused na dialectic ya rasmi na maarufu kijamii-utamaduni nguvu. Kwa upande mmoja kuna nguvu za kitamaduni za kukazia na kudumisha: "viwango rasmi", lugha ya umoja, kanuni ya fasihi na kadhalika. Upande mwingine unasimama ushawishi wa kutofautisha wa utamaduni maarufu: sherehe ya watu wengi na dhihaka ya pamoja, ucheshi wa fasihi, na riwaya ya kupinga kanuni. Kuinuka kwa riwaya kunahusiana na kuanguka kwa umoja wa kale na kuvunjika kwa mipaka ya kitamaduni. "Wakati utamaduni rasmi ulipotengeneza kanuni ya aina za mashairi ambayo ilitoa lugha ya kawaida ya kawaida, ilitoa mtazamo wa ulimwengu wa monolithic na hadithi za hadithi za enzi ya dhahabu na mwanzo wa mashujaa, riwaya hiyo inashutumu sifa hizi, ikidhihaki madai ya utamaduni rasmi ya ""halali ya ulimwengu wote"" na ""mkataba wa kawaida wa aina za kanoni na lugha.""" Kwa hivyo, riwaya ni usemi wa fasihi wa mchakato mzima wa kijamii na kitamaduni, lakini mchakato huu ni pana sana kuingizwa chini ya lebo ambayo Bakhtin anatoa bila matatizo makubwa ya usahihi wa dhana. "Jina la utani ""poetic"" linakuwa kifupi cha jumla ya miundo ya taasisi na utamaduni ambayo inaweza kuingizwa katika upande wa ofisi." Kwa hivyo ushairi unaashiria aina ya hotuba inayotumiwa katika maandishi ya kisanii na uhusiano wa cheo kati ya hotuba ambazo zinaunda mahusiano ya ushawishi wa jamii isiyo sawa. Kwa kulinganisha, novelistic inaelezea tabia ya aina, hotuba ya kisanii yenye msisitizo mwingi, na uhusiano wa kupambana na mamlaka kati ya hotuba. Jopo jingine la maneno ambayo ni mara nyingi kutumika interchangeably na hizi mbili ni monologic na dialogic. Ya kwanza inaonyesha aina ya mono-accentual ya hotuba na msimamo wa mamlaka kuelekea hotuba nyingine. Hii ya mwisho inaelezea hotuba ya multi-accentual, uhusiano wa hotuba, na mwelekeo juu ya hotuba ya monological ambayo inatafuta kufunua muundo wa itikadi unaotazama nyuma ya kuonekana kwa uso. "Mabaki ya maneno rasmi na ya kisiasa yanabadilika mbele ya msomaji, ambaye anakumbushwa daima ""mipangilio ya taasisi"" kwa matukio yote ya mazungumzo, lakini haitoi kamwe maelezo ya kijamii ya ""mipangilio hiyo.""" Hii inaweza kuelezwa na vikwazo vya kiitikadi vilivyowekwa kwa mwandishi yeyote katika Urusi ya Stalin na kwa mfumo wa kipekee wa nadharia ya Bakhtin mwenyewe. Uwazi huu umeruhusu tafsiri tofauti sana za kazi ya Bakhtin kuchorwa, kuanzia mwelekeo wa kupunguza hoja nzima kwa moja ya aina za kisanii, na kuongoza kwa ukosoaji wa rasmi wa uhuru na majaribio ya kuhusisha hoja ya Bakhtin na aina za taasisi za jamii ya kisasa ya mtaji. Kazi ya Bakhtin hivyo imekuwa uwanja wa vita kati ya (hasa Marekani) wasomi huria na (hasa Uingereza) anti-Stalinist Marxists. Katika awamu yake ya kale, populism ya Urusi ilikuwa, kulingana na Walicki, "kinyume na akili ya abstract" ya wale mapinduzi ambao walijaribu kuwafundisha wakulima, kuwaweka juu ya maadili ya ujamaa wa Magharibi, badala ya kujifunza nini mahitaji yao halisi na kutenda kwa jina la maslahi na maadili ambayo wakulima walikuwa tayari wamegundua. "Hata hivyo, alitoa maoni ya kupinga wale wa International ya Pili ya Marxists ambao walidai kwamba ubepari ulikuwa hatua isiyoepukika katika maendeleo ya Urusi (The Controversy Over Capitalism, 1989: 3)."" Kwa maana moja, basi, ilikuwa itikadi ya kisiasa sambamba na Marxism ya Kimataifa ya Tatu, lakini kwa nyingine ilitafuta kubadilisha utawala wa wasomi juu ya "watu". Mshairi wa Bakhtin ni msomi mwenye mamlaka ambaye lugha yake inahusiana kwa njia ya mamlaka na mazungumzo ya watu wengi, wakati mwandishi wa riwaya anatafuta kuvunja na kwa kweli kubadilisha uhusiano huo wa utawala. Katika utungaji wa Bakhtin, mahali pa nguvu muhimu za utamaduni ni watu, wakati nguvu za hadithi za utamaduni hutokea kutoka kwa safu rasmi. Kazi nyingi kuu juu ya riwaya hiyo ziliandikwa angalau kwa sehemu kwa kujibu nadharia ya riwaya iliyoundwa na Georg Lukács. Bakhtin alianza kutafsiri The Theory of the Novel ya Lukács katika miaka ya 1920, lakini aliacha mradi huo baada ya kujua kwamba Lukács hakupenda tena kitabu hicho, lakini katika miaka ya 1930, wakati Lukács alipokubaliana na utawala wa Stalin na kuwa Hegelian wa haki, nadharia yake ya riwaya ikawa ya kawaida. Bakhtin alikubaliana na Lukács kwamba riwaya hiyo iliwakilisha "kiini cha enzi" na kwamba ucheshi ulikuwa sababu kuu ya mbinu ya riwaya, lakini alikataa madai ya mwisho kwamba isipokuwa riwaya hiyo ilifunua nyuzi ya busara inayotembea kupitia ulimwengu unaoonekana kuwa wa anarchic, ambayo ni, ilitoa mtazamo wa mamlaka, mwandishi alikuwa ameshindwa na uharibifu wa bourgeois. Majaribio ya kisasa ya rasmi na utawala wa parody katika fasihi ya kisasa Lukács aligundua kuwa tafakari ya "kuharibika kwa bourgeois", wakati Bakhtin alijitahidi kufunua mizizi yake ya kidemokrasia ya watu. Riwaya hiyo haipaswi kuonekana kama fidia ya wasiwasi wa jamii ya kisasa, kufunua njia ya uhakika ya maendeleo, lakini utimizo wa nguvu za nguvu ambazo zinaweza kuunda jamii kwa mtindo wa kidemokrasia ya watu. Hivyo, ambapo Lukács alishikilia kufungwa kwa hadithi, Bakhtin alisisitiza uwazi wa riwaya; ambapo Lukács alitetea uwepo mkubwa wa hadithi, Bakhtin alitetea kuongeza makutano ya lugha nyingi na upimaji wa hotuba. Bakhtin anachukua msimamo wa kushoto wa Hegelian dhidi ya Lukács; dialogism inakuwa sawa na Geist ya Hegel, wote wakielezea jumla ya kijamii na kusimama katika hukumu juu ya enzi hizo ambazo amri ya mazungumzo haijatimizwa. 5. Uwe na mtazamo mzuri. "Karnaval, Historia na Utamaduni wa Watu: Rabelais, Goethe na Dostoyevsky Kama Wanafalsafa: ""Mwisho wa populism ya Bakhtin unaweza kuonekana katika utafiti wake maarufu wa 1965 wa Rabelais na toleo la pili la Dostoyevsky la 1929." Maandishi ya kwanza yaliandikwa kama dissertation ya udaktari ya Bakhtin, ambayo ilikuwa imeandikwa mwishoni mwa miaka ya 1930, lakini ilikuwa tayari kuchapishwa tu wakati yeye alitoka katika ukosefu wa ufahamu katika miaka ya 1960. Tvorchestvo Françoise Rabeau i Narodna Kulture i Renesans (Ufunuo wa François Rabelais na Utamaduni wa Watu wa Enzi za Kati na Renaissance) Bakhtin anajishughulisha na kuanguka kwa utaratibu mkali wa utawala wa enzi za kati na mwanzo wa Renaissance kwa kuangalia jinsi njia za kale za kuishi na kufanya kazi kwa pamoja, kulingana na mwendo wa asili, zinaonekana tena katika aina za utamaduni wa watu, kinyume na utamaduni rasmi. "Bakhtin, katika kitabu chake ""Dostoevsky's Poetics,"" alitoa maoni haya ya msingi: ""Kuna maisha mawili ya mtu wa enzi za kati: moja ni maisha ya kazi, ya kawaida na ya hali ya chini, ya kudhibitiwa na utaratibu mkali wa kidini, ya hofu, ya kidogoma, ya heshima na ya uaminifu; na nyingine ni maisha ya uwanja wa carnival, ya uhuru na ya bure, ya kucheka, ya kuabudu, ya kuharibu, ya kuharibu, ya kila kitu na kila kitu." Maisha hayo mawili yalikuwa halali, lakini yalitofautiana kwa mipaka ya muda. "Kama vile shughuli za uwanja wa carnival: kuchekesha kwa pamoja ya ofisi, kubadilisha utaratibu wa cheo, ukiukaji wa adabu na uwiano, sherehe ya kupita kiasi kwa mwili, na kadhalika, kwa Bakhtin, huonyesha dhana ya watu wa ulimwengu.""" Hata hivyo, dhana hii haikuweza kuwa na utata wa kiitikadi hadi kicheko cha kikamilifu cha mraba kiliingia katika "ulimwengu wa fasihi kubwa" (Rabelais p.96). "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, ""Rabelais"" ni mfano wa mchakato huu wa kuvunja ulimwengu mgumu, wa hierarchical wa Enzi za Kati na kuzaliwa kwa enzi ya kisasa." Rabelais ni zaidi ya mwandishi wa riwaya kwa Bakhtin: kazi yake inaonyesha falsafa mpya kabisa ya historia, ambayo ulimwengu unaonekana katika mchakato wa kuwa. Grotesque ni picha ya kuwa hii, mipaka kati ya mtu na mtu, mtu na kitu, ni kufuta kama mtu huungana na watu na cosmos nzima. Kama mwili wa mtu binafsi ni transcended, mwili wa kibiolojia ni negated na "mwili wa kihistoria, maendeleo ya ubinadamu" hoja kwa kituo cha mfumo wa picha. Katika karamu ya kifo na kuzaliwa upya, mwili wa mtu hufa, lakini mwili wa watu huishi na kukua, maisha ya kibiolojia yanaisha lakini maisha ya kihistoria yanaendelea. Carnivalesc inakuwa seti ya mikakati ya picha-borne kwa ajili ya destabilizing mtazamo rasmi wa dunia. Katika makala yake ya hivi karibuni iliyochapishwa iliyoandikwa kwa ajili ya kuingizwa katika Soviet Literaturnaia Ensiklopediya (Ensaiklopedia ya Fasihi) mnamo 1940, Bakhtin anafafanua mtazamo wa ucheshi kama 'kukataliwa kwa picha' ya hali ya sasa kama ukosefu wa kutosha, ambayo ina ndani yake wakati mzuri ambao hali ya sasa imeboreshwa. Uhalisi huu uliothibitishwa ni uhitaji wa kihistoria uliofunikwa katika hali ya sasa na ambao unamaanisha picha ya ajabu. Bakhtin anasema kwamba mambo yasiyo ya kawaida "hufunua uwezekano wa ulimwengu tofauti kabisa, wa utaratibu mwingine, njia nyingine ya maisha. Inaongoza mtu nje ya mipaka ya umoja wa dhahiri (mbaya), ya isiyoweza kupingwa na thabiti <unk> (Rabelais p.48). "Picha ya mwili, kama picha ambayo inaonyesha metamorphosis isiyo kamili, haijitokezi tena yenyewe, inawakilisha kile Hegel alikiita ""dialectic ya ulimwengu wa maisha.""" Kuzaliwa kwa Enzi ya Renaissance ya ulimwengu wa kihistoria kuliongoza kwenye maendeleo mapya katika Enlightenment. Rabelais alishirikiana na Goethe katika kuanzisha enzi ya Enlightenment, na katika kipindi cha Renaissance, enzi ya Enlightenment ilifikia kilele cha enzi ya Goethe. Utaratibu wa kutawanya <unk> mabaki ya mshikamano wa ulimwengu mwingine na umoja wa hadithi <unk> ulikamilika wakati huu, ukisaidia <unk> ukweli kujikusanya pamoja na kufyatua katika jumla inayoonekana ya ulimwengu mpya <unk> (Speech Genres and Other Late Essaysp.45). "Bakhtin anasema katika sehemu ambayo inategemea sana Cassirer (kifungu kinachohusiana ni ""The Philosophy of the Enlightenment"" p. 197), haipaswi tena kuchukuliwa kuwa enzi ya kihistoria, lakini ""kipindi cha kuamka kubwa ya hisia ya wakati, juu ya yote... katika asili na maisha ya binadamu.""" Lakini, Bakhtin anasema, mchakato huu wa kuandaa ufunuo wa wakati wa kihistoria ulifanyika haraka zaidi, kikamilifu, na kwa kina katika ubunifu wa fasihi kuliko katika maoni ya kifalsafa, ya kiitikadi ya wasomi wa Uangaishaji. Goethe alikuwa na mawazo ya msingi ya chronotopic, yeye visualized wakati katika nafasi: Wakati na nafasi kuunganisha... katika umoja inseparable... maalum na kabisa halisi eneo hutumika katika hatua ya kuanzia kwa ajili ya mawazo ya ubunifu... hii ni kipande cha historia ya binadamu, wakati wa kihistoria condensed katika nafasi. Kwa hiyo, njama (jumla ya matukio iliyoonyeshwa) na wahusika... ni kama nguvu hizo za ubunifu ambazo ziliunda na kuifanya mazingira haya ya kibinadamu, zilifanya iwe alama ya kuongea ya harakati ya historia (wakati wa kihistoria), na kwa kiwango fulani, ziliamua mwendo wake wa baadaye pia, au kama nguvu hizo za ubunifu ambazo eneo fulani linahitaji ili kuandaa na kuendelea na mchakato wa kihistoria uliojumuishwa. Goethe alitaka kuunganisha na kuunganisha sasa, zamani na siku zijazo na pete ya uhitaji, ili kufanya sasa kuwa ubunifu. Kama Rabelais, Goethe alikuwa mwanafalsafa kama mwandishi. "Hii ndiyo sababu ya kuchukuliwa kwa ""mfano wa kwanza"" katika utafiti wa Dostoevsky wa 1963." Dostoevsky haonekani tena kama mvumbuzi wa asili, kama ilivyo katika toleo la 1929, bali kama mrithi wa utamaduni ulio mizizi katika utamaduni maarufu. Mwandishi huyo alikuwa amesimama kwenye kizingiti cha enzi mpya, wakati Milki ya Urusi yenye utaratibu mkali ilipokuwa tayari kutoa njia kwa kuwasili kwa msiba wa anarchy ya ubepari na hatimaye mapinduzi. Dostoyevsky hivyo intersected na kizingiti poetic ya carnival katika hatua tofauti katika maendeleo yake, yeye alitafuta kuwasilisha sauti ya enzi yake katika <unk>pure simultaneity<unk> unrivalled tangu Dante. "Kama ilivyo kwa Goethe, hii ni moja ya ""kuona mahusiano katika suala la nafasi, si wakati,"" na hii inaongoza kwa mwelekeo wa kifalsafa kwamba ni wazi messianic: ""Ni mambo kama vile inaweza kuwa na uhusiano katika hatua moja katika muda ni muhimu na ni kuingizwa katika dunia Dostoevsky; mambo kama hayo inaweza kubebwa katika milele, kwa ajili ya milele, kulingana na Dostoevsky, kila kitu ni wakati mmoja, kila kitu coexists. """ Kwa hiyo hakuna sababu katika riwaya za Dostoevsky, hakuna genesis, hakuna maelezo kulingana na zamani, juu ya ushawishi wa mazingira au malezi na kadhalika. Kila tendo ambalo mhusika hufanya ni la sasa, na kwa maana hii halijaamuliwa kimbele; linafikiriwa na kuwakilishwa na mwandishi kama huru. "Kutokana na hii, ""Mapokeo ya karneval"" ni ""mjadala wa kifalsafa wa karneval"" na ""Mapokeo ya karneval"" ni ""Mapokeo ya karneval.""" Aina hii ya falsafa na fasihi inafikia hatua mpya katika kazi ya Dostoyevsky, ambapo mizizi ya riwaya kama aina inasimama wazi sana. "Mmoja wa mizizi hiyo ilikuwa ""Mjadala wa Socrates,"" ambayo ilishindwa na monologue ya Aristotle, lakini iliendelea kuongoza maisha ya chini ya ardhi katika aina ndogo za satire zisizo za kawaida, na kisha ikawa kipengele cha msingi cha aina ya riwaya na, kwa njia ya wazi, kisasa cha fasihi." Hilo ndilo linalotoa umuhimu wake wa kifalsafa. 6. Uwe na uhakika Katika miaka yake ya mwisho Bakhtin alirudi kwa maswali ya mbinu ambayo yalikuwa yamechukua miaka yake ya mapema, ingawa sasa kwa mtazamo tofauti. Alianza kazi yake ya kutafakari aina za usemi katika miaka ya 1950, ingawa mbali na utafiti huu, hakutoa maandishi yoyote ya kudumu hadi miaka ya 1970. Bakhtin sasa alianza kusisitiza tabia ya mazungumzo ya utafiti wote katika sayansi ya binadamu, ukweli kwamba mtu anahitaji kushughulika na mwingine ambaye anaweza kuzungumza kwa ajili yake na juu yake mwenyewe kwa njia tofauti kabisa kuliko na kitu kisicho na uhai na bila sauti. Kwa kusudi hili alitafuta kutofautisha msimamo wake na ule wa muundo wa Sovieti, ambao ulichukua mbinu ya "mtu wa kawaida" kwa lugha na katiba ya somo. Mbinu ya Bakhtin ya subjectivity ni ya mazungumzo, ikirejelea kubadilishana kwa maneno badala ya lugha ndogo, na hii inaenea kwa uchambuzi wa maandishi ambayo daima ni ya kati ya maandishi, kukutana na kuangazia kila mmoja. Kama vile maandishi yana aina, "maumbo ya kawaida ya ujenzi wa jumla yaliyo wazi na thabiti" ndivyo ilivyo na hotuba. Kwa hivyo mipaka kati ya aina ngumu kama zile zinazoonekana kwa kawaida kama fasihi na aina zingine zisizo rasmi zinapaswa kuonekana kuwa porous na rahisi, kuruhusu mazungumzo ya aina na mitindo. Kazi ya mzunguko wa Bakhtin ni ya pande nyingi na muhimu sana kwa wasiwasi wa kisasa wa falsafa. Hata hivyo kazi yao inazidi falsafa iliyofafanuliwa kwa njia nyembamba ili kujumuisha anthropolojia, masomo ya fasihi, historia na nadharia ya kisiasa. Mabadiliko ya maisha ya kiakili katika Muungano wa Sovieti yamezidisha tathmini ya kazi ya mzunguko, kama vile njia ambayo kazi zimechapishwa na kutafsiriwa katika miaka ya hivi karibuni. Zaidi ya hayo, kazi za kikundi hicho zimesomwa katika msimamo wa nadharia ulioundwa na wasiwasi wa leo juu ya baada ya muundo na hatima ya somo katika falsafa ya kisasa. Tathmini sahihi ya kihistoria ya kazi ya Mzunguko wa Bakhtin itasaidiwa sana na uchapishaji wa Kazi kamili za Bakhtin ambazo zitaonekana katika miaka michache ijayo. Hii itatarajiwa kufuatiwa na tafsiri ya Kiingereza iliyopatana ambayo itawezesha tathmini ya habari katika ulimwengu unaozungumza Kiingereza. Chuo Kikuu cha Sheffield