"The Russian Tongue" by I.S. Turgenev: Poetics and the History of Canonization

The research is dedicated to the analysis of the poetics and genre features of the “Russian language” by I. S. Turgenev. An attempt is also being made to reconstruct the history of the school canonization of the text and to determine the function that the “Russian Language” performed in the policy of “russocentrism” pursued by the Stalinist government in the late 1930s. As a result of the poetics research, the key role of oppositions and negations in the organization of the poetics of poetry in prose was revealed, and features indicating the proximity of the “Russian language” to the genres of hymn, prayer and confession were identified. In addition, the period of the text’s entry into Soviet school curricula, its permanent presence in anthologies and textbooks of literature, and its function of promoting the dominant role of the Russian language in the Soviet state were traced.