The Literary Circle of Mikhail Kuzmin: Boundaries – Levels – Pragmatics

This paper examines the structural and pragmatic characteristics of the literary circle (Rus. литературный круг), a form of literary cooperation that has rarely been the subject of independent analysis, particularly when compared with other forms of writers’ associations (such as clubs, salons, and groups). The main set of issues associated with the literary circle lies in the fluidity of its boundaries, the absence of both an explicit method of uniting its members and a defined creative programme. An analysis of literary circles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals a few recurring criteria for identifying a circle: the presence of a core and a periphery, the predominance of social contacts over creative ones, the duration and regularity of contacts, and the sharing of common practices among the members of the circle. The article focuses on Mikhail Kuzmin’s circle, an internally heterogeneous community that existed in Leningrad in the 1920s–1930s, which, at various times, Y. I. Yurkun, K. K. Vaginov, A. N. Yegunov, A. D. and S. E. Radlovs, D. Kharms, A. I. Vvedensky, D. I. Mitrokhin and others were part of. Based on Kuzmin’s diary (1921–1927), the author carries out a quantitative analysis of his contacts, which makes it possible to identify a number of objective characteristics of the network that existed around him. This confirmed the hypothesis that a scattered and outwardly atomised community (of around a thousand people) can be regarded as a fully-fledged social unit, functioning in a unique way within the literary sphere of the first decades of Soviet power. An analysis of the historical and cultural context of the emergence of Kuzmin’s circle reveals several distinctive features of the emergence of this form of sociality. The growth of literary circles and other forms of writers’ cooperation occurred in the early 1920s and coincided both with the formalisation of the idea of collectivism and with a reflection on the theme of the ‘domestic’ mode of existence of literature, as presented in B. M. Eichenbaum’s concept of ‘literary everyday life’ (Rus. литературный быт). Gradually, ‘domesticity’ transformed from a legitimate mode of existence into a transgressive one, a series of political decisions aimed at tightening control over all forms of cooperation effectively put an end to the formation of any circles or groups. In these conditions, the literary circle, existing on the border between personal and institutional spaces, easily transforming into a formalised entity and just as easily disintegrating into individual contacts, became the most viable means of communication for figures in literature and the arts who gravitated towards an aesthetic alternative to the nascent Soviet one. This circumstance allows the author to view the literary circle as a ‘tactic’ (in the terminology of M. de Certeau), i. e. a mode of existence that exploits the flaws of the social system for its own functioning. This study makes it possible to conceptualise the literary circle as a phenomenon of intrinsic value, situated at the boundary between the broader social space and the private sphere of literature and art.