Berlin in the early 1920s in the letters of Alexei Gvozdinsky
Abstract
This article aims to look at the phenomenon of the first wave of Russian emigration through the prism of the so-called personal history. The anthropological turn in the humanities, which took place in the second half of the 20th century, contributed to an increase in the understanding of the importance of an individual and an interest in the culture of everyday life. Egodocuments play an important role in exploring these phenomena, thanks to which we learn about the specificity of everyday life of Russian emigrants and the unique inner world of an individual. Such an opportunity is offered by Alexei Gvozdinski's letters to Elizaveta Miller, who recorded in his correspondence a far from harmonious existence in the German capital of the early 1920s. The Russian émigré petrified in his letters several weeks of life in Berlin, which were mainly marked by loneliness, poverty and being lost in an unfriendly, gloomy juggernaut, in which — unlike Constantinople or Rome (earlier stops on the émigré road) — he could not see anything positive and beautiful. His perception of the city was influenced by both subjective factors and stereotypical perceptions.
Keywords
Keywords: first wave of emigration, Berlin, egodocuments, letters, personal history, everyman
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Uniwersytet Zielonogórski Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5101-1629
Dr, literaturoznawczyni, adiunkt w Zakładzie Rusycystyki Instytutu Neofilologii Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego. Zainteresowania badawcze: rosyjska literatura i kultura końca XIX i początku XX wieku, twórczość pierwszej fali emigracji rosyjskiej, egodokumenty. Autorka monografii Historia a jednostka w twórczości Siergieja Siergiejewa-Censkiego (2007), współredaktorka kilku monografii oraz kilkudziesięciu artykułów wydanych w Polsce i zagranicą.
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