La tesi ricostruisce la complessa vicenda della scrittura e pubblicazione del celebre poema Uljalaevščina di Il’ja Sel’vinskij. La stesura dell’opera, le sue riscritture e pubblicazioni non sono mai state oggetto di indagine, perciò il lavoro della dott.ssa Krasnikova, basato su fonti sia d’archivio sia a stampa, costituisce il primo studio sistematico della storia del poema che analizza tutte le fonti pubblicate e d’archivio conosciute attualmente (la maggior parte delle quali non è mai stata studiata prima) e utilizza sia i metodi tradizionali della critica del testo sia gli strumenti digitali. Con il suo lavoro di ricerca la dott.ssa Krasnikova ha individuato e stabilito tutte le versioni del testo del poema, e anche gli altri materiali che possono far luce sulla storia del poema; successivamente, ha descritto e analizzato le versioni, definito il tipo e il grado delle differenze tra le varianti, cercando di capire i motivi dei mutamenti. Tra i risultati della ricerca spiccano la creazione dell’elenco di tutte le versioni del poema e dei suoi frammenti (38 testi in totale) e la costruzione di un corpus digitale delle versioni di Uljalaevščina. / The thesis reconstructs the complex story of the creation and publication of the famous Uljalaevščina, a poem by Ilya Selvinsky. The issue has never been studied, so the work of Anna Krasnikova, based on archival and published sources, constitutes the first systematic study of the history of the poem. The author analyzes all the published and archival sources currently known (most of which have never been studied before) and uses traditional methods of text criticism and digital tools. The author has identified and established all the versions of the text of the poem, as well as other materials that can be useful for the reconstruction of the history of the poem; she has described and analyzed all he versions, defined the type and degree of differences between the variants, trying to understand the reasons for the changes. Among the research results are the creation of a list of all the versions of the poem and its fragments (38 texts in total) and the construction of a digital corpus of the versions of Uljalaevščina.

This Master’s thesis explores Jewish masculinity and identity within early twentieth-century literature (1903-1925), using texts written by Jewish authors in late imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union. This was a period of change for Russia’s Jewish community, involving increased secularization and reform, massive pogroms such as in Kishinev in 1903, newfound leadership within the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions, and a rise in both Zionist and Revolutionary ideology. Subsequently, Jewish literary masculinity experienced a significant shift in characterization. Historically, a praised Jewish man had been portrayed as gentle, scholarly, and faithful, yet early twentieth century Jewish male literary figures were asked to be physically strong, hypermasculine, and secular. This thesis first uses H.N. Bialik’s “In the City of Slaughter” (1903) and Sholem Aleichem’s “Tevye Goes to Palestine” (1914) to introduce a concept of “Jewish shame,” or a sentiment that historical Jewish masculinity was insufficient for a contemporary Russian world. It then creates two models for these new men to follow. The Assimilatory Jew, seen in Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry cycle (published throughout the 1920s), held that perpetual outsider Jewish men should imitate the behaviour of a secular whole in order to be accepted. The Jewish Superman is depicted in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “In Memory of Herzl” (1904) and Ilya Selvinsky’s “Bar Kokhba” (1920), and argues that masculine glory is entirely compatible with a proud Jewish identity, without an external standard needed. Judith Butler’s theories on gender performativity are used to analyze these diverse works, published in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian by authors of varying political alignments, to establish commonalities among these literary canons and plot a new spectrum of desired identities for Jewish men. / Graduate / 2020-04-10