2024 Issue 1

The journal «Syuzhetologiya i syuzhetografiya» (Studies in Theory of Literary Plot and Narratology) is published by the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences four times a year. The name of the journal is formed by analogy with the terminological combination “lexicology and lexicography“ common in linguistics. In Russian philology, «syuzhetologiya» (analysis of plot) in its methodologically strict form originates in the works of academician Alexander Veselovsky, first of all, in his “Poetics of Plots“. A profound contribution to the tradition of analysis of plot was made by Vladimir Propp, Victor Shklovsky, Boris Tomashevsky, Michail Bakhtin, Yury Lotman, Eleasar Meletinsky, Natan Tamarchenko and many other folklorists and literary scholars. In foreign science, narratology correlates with plot analysis in many significant aspects.

At the present stage, the direction of plot analysis is developing from structuralist research conducted at the University of Daugavpils. The concept of plot structure, drawn from the heritage of the Russian formal school, as well as the history of literary plots, the relationship between the concepts of “plot” and “genre”, “plot” and “tradition”, “author’s plot” and “character’s plot”, plot diversity, episode and story — all this was of interest to plot analysts working under the auspices of the Daugavpils scientific school. This long-term work was reflected in the serial publications “Questions of Plot Composition” (1969—1978), the collections “Plot Composition in Russian Literature” (1980) and “Plot and Artistic System” (1983).

In general, plot analysis is defined as an approach aimed at studying the plot as a method of storytelling, its structure and functions in the system of folklore and literary works. The subject of plot analysis can also be an extra-event plot as a co- and opposition of non-event and anarrative factors of artistic meaning formation. This is a description, a detail, a remark, as well as the word itself, sound and rhythm, especially in lyrics, and finally, non-verbal meaning-forming factors — a visual and audial image, an object, a situation as such. Thus, plot analysis, in contrast to the currently widespread narratology, goes beyond the field defined by the phenomenon of a verbalized event, and the art of abstract painting or installation, for example, also becomes its material.

«Syuzhetografiya» (description of plot), by analogy with lexicography, is an applied derivative of plotology — this is an approach aimed at fixing and systematizing stable units of plot narration in folklore and literature, primarily motives and plots. The need for such a relatively independent segment of philological knowledge was realized in the early 2000s during the work on the «Dictionary of Plots and Motifs of Russian Literature», carried out by a team of literary scholars of the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Elena Romodanovskaya and Valery Tyupa. However, in folklore studies, the problem of methodological foundations for the index of plots (especially fairy tale plots) has a rich background, starting from the 1910s, when folklorists mastered the experience of Antti Aarne’s «Index of Fairy Tale Types».

The journal also shows particular interest in the empirics of the literary process, when the plot is clarified in the process of reconstructing the creative history and reception of the work.

The journal's editorial board includes outstanding scientists. Until the last days of his life, Boris Egorov was on the editorial board, an authoritative researcher and a great expert on Russian literature. The journal is now headed by Elena Kapinos, a leading researcher in literary criticism.

Over the years of the journal’s existence, significant works by reputable researchers have been published in it. Special issues were published dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Pushkin scholar Yury Chumakov, whose name is associated with a radical rethinking of the concept of «lyrical plot», and Siberian writers and Siberia in the Russian literary process of the twentieth century. The journal also published works by A.K. Zholkovsky about the structure of children's stories by Leo Tolstoy, by E.I. Pogorelskaya about the plot and genesis of Isaac Babel’s story “Di Grasso”, by R.D. Timenchik about the Siberian echoes of Anna Akhmatova’s poetry, by I.A. Pilshchikov and A.B. Ustinov on the participation of Viktor Shklovsky in the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the creation of the «first theory of plot composition» (his report «Don Quixote’s Speeches»), works by V.V. Nekhotin and A.V. Trushkina about the Irkutsk «Barge of Poets» and the plots characteristic of its representatives, about the reflection of the plots of the mythology of the Caucasus in the prose of Alexei Remizov (E.A. Sahakyan).

A special place is occupied by works devoted to the plots and destinies of undeservedly forgotten writers, including the disclosure of mysterious pseudonyms: Vasily Krasnogorsky (V.V. Nekhotin), Chrolli (pseudonym of S.F. Tarasov; I.E. Loschilov), Golubchik-Gostov (pseudonym of L M. Goldenova; L.Yu. Bolshukhin and O.V. Zamyatina). The journal contains commented publications of hard-to-find or previously unpublished texts (Alexei Achair’s poem «Cossacks» and Yuri Sopov’s «Arthur Rimbaud», essays by Vsevolod Ivanov from the Siberian newspaper «Forward» in 1919). A separate line consists of works related to the plot in the fine arts: articles by O.V. Koval and A.V. Shilo about the plot in the painting of Ilya Repin, about updating the plot in the graphics of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky of the Berlin period and about Russian literary paraphrases on the themes of Tintoretto’s painting (A.B. Ustinov).

Thus, the journal «Syuzhetologiya i syuzhetografiya» (Studies in Theory of Literary Plot and Narratology) reflects the current state of the study of plot in literary criticism and other disciplines, in all the diversity of understanding of this term and interaction with related ones (plot, episode, narrative, biography of a writer, motive, genre, etc.).

The Journal continues the traditions of the periodic series of scientific works "Materials for the Dictionary of Plots and Motives in Russian Literature", having being published at the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the RAS since the early 1990s.

The Journal has been published since 2013; it has two issues a year. The Journal publishes scientific materials in the following areas:

Media: the Journal is an electronic online publication with the permanent address (ISSN 2713–3133) and has а print version (ISSN 2410–7883).

Publisher: Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The issues of the Journal is posted on the portal "Scientific Electronic Library eLIBRARY.RU".

The materials of the Journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.