An Adventure On Russian Formalism, One Of The Aesthetic Literary Movements

The formalism movement, which became popular in Europe in the 1960s, was the product of a community of researchers active in Petersburg and Moscow between 1915 and 1930. The studies carried out together by the linguistic circle established in Moscow in 1915 and the poetic language study association in Petersburg, founded in 1917, after a while disturbed people with opposing views, and this movement was called "formalism" by those who wanted to slander them. Although this naming creates a critical perspective, over time it has become a concept that reflects the work of these researchers. Russian formalists wanted to treat literature as a subject of study and evaluate this subject around scientific principles. Because for them, the science or method that would analyze the literature should be autonomous. In other words, they believed in the need to deal directly with the scientific text prepared for this field with principles, rather than explaining it with literature, philosophy, linguistics, aesthetics, and social factors.

Russian formalists tried to confirm and develop their institutional views by applying them to different texts. We can list these researchers and the areas they work on as follows:

1) Osip Brik (1888-1945): He studied the problems of rhythm and syntax in poetry.

2) Boris Eikhenbaum (1886-1959): He studied the melody, style and prose of lyric poetry.

3) Roman Osipovich Jakobson (1896-1982): He worked on art, reality and the expression of poetry.

4) Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (1895-1970): He worked on structural analysis of folk tales.

5) Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893-1984): He worked methodically and approachable on prose theory, stylistic problems, and technical art.

6) Yury Nikolaevich Tynyanov (1894-1943): He worked on literary evolution and stylistic problems.

7) Boris Viktorovich Tomashevsky (1890-1957): He worked on poetry, style and literary theory.

8) Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov (1895-1969): He worked on prose and poetry language.

When we evaluate the situation in terms of semiotics, the person who had the most influence on the development of semiotics, especially literary semiotics, and the advancement of narrative analysis is Vladimir Propp. Propp studied at the Slavic Phonology Department in Petersburg. Meanwhile, Vladimir Propp focused his interest on Russian folk tales regarding folklore. One of the important names among Russian formalists is Roman Jacobson. Jacobson is a scientist who was among the Russian formalists, contributed to the Prague linguistics circle, and influenced the fields of linguistics, semiotics, and literary studies in Europe and America. He sees literature as a separate subject of study and examines various literary and artistic products, especially poetry. According to Jacobson, the subject of literary science is not literature but literaryness. In other words, literary science has first of all tried to find an answer to the question of what makes a linguistic statement a virtual work. Jacobson uses his own linguistic method when examining literary texts.