RUSSIAN FORMALISM

Russian Formalism is the name for a group of literary scholars and linguistsin Russia from the 1910s to the 1930s.The leading members were OsipBrik,Boris Eikhenbaum, Roman jakobson,ViktorShklovskii, Boris Tomashevskii, and JuriiTynianov. They developed a series of innovative theoretical concepts, claims,models, and methodological norms concerning various aspects of the literary system and its study.

Russian Formalism was never a school with a uniform principle, whether theoretical, historical, ormethodological.Russian Formalism’s major contributions can be approached in terms of basic perspectives and majorresearch areas.The literariness orartfulness of a work of literature, that which makes it an aesthetic object, resides entirely in its devices,which should also form the sole object of literary studies.RussianFormalism was a constantly evolving and changing originality in which concepts, hypotheses, and modelswere formulated, deeply discussed, and modified or replaced as soon as insufficiencies were discovered ornew questions arose that the Formalists could not handle.It was more an ongoing process of self-conscioustheorizing than a finished theory.

A school of literary theory and analysis that emerged in Russia around 1915, devoting itself to the study of literariness. The literary historical processis a key concern for the Russian Formalists. Russian Formalism made a difference between sjuzet (plot) and fabula (story). The plot is strictly literary, whereas the story is raw material awaiting the organizing hand of a writer. The plot is not merely the events of the story; it also encompasses the literary devices used to narrate the story.Russian Formalism formally ended in early 1930s.