Mikhail Bakhtin's contribution to the development of European and world culture can hardly be overestimated. The disgraced Soviet philosopher was not published for many years. After serving his sentence, he had to work in the provinces. But here, too, he continued his research in the field of philosophy, aesthetics and literature.
From the biography of Mikhail Bakhtin
The future thinker and cultural theorist was born in Orel on November 5 (according to the new style - 17th) November 1895. Mikhail's father served in a bank. The Bakhtin family had six children. Subsequently, the family moved to Vilnius, then to Odessa. The elder brother of Mikhail Bakhtin, Nikolai, later became a philosopher and specialist in the history of antiquity.
Bakhtin, in his own words, studied at the Petrograd and Novorossiysk universities. However, there is no documentary confirmation of these facts. It is known that he did not graduate from the university.
After the October Revolution, Bakhtin lived in Nevel, where he taught at a unified labor school. Gradually, a close circle of like-minded intellectuals formed there, which included L. Pumpyansky, M. Kagan, M. Yudina, V. Voloshinov, B. Zubakin. In 1919, the first of Mikhail Mikhailovich's articles, "Art and Responsibility", was published.
After 1920, Bakhtin lived in Vitebsk. Here he taught at the Conservatory and Pedagogical Institute, gave lectures on literature, aesthetics and philosophy. For four years Bakhtin worked on philosophical treatises and a book about F. M. Dostoevsky.
In 1921, Mikhail got married. Elena Aleksandrovna Okolovich became his wife.
In 1924, Bakhtin arrived in Leningrad. He takes part in home debates and seminars. The topics of such intellectual meetings are diverse: philosophy, literature, ethics, religion. Thinkers also discussed Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis.
At the end of 1928, Bakhtin, along with several other Petersburg intellectuals, was arrested. The basis is participation in the activities of the so-called Meyer's group "Resurrection". After some time, Mikhail Mikhailovich was released and transferred to house arrest. Osteomyelitis became the reason for the change in the preventive measure.
In July 1929, when Bakhtin was in the hospital, he was sentenced to five years in the camps. Around the same time, his book "Problems of Dostoevsky's Creativity" was published. This fact influenced the fate of the philosopher. Solovetsky camps replaced him with five years of exile in Kostanay.
In 1936, the ban on Bakhtin's residence in large cities of the country ended. The philosopher got a job in Saransk at the Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute. However, a year later he was forced to move to the Kalinin region, to the Savyolovo station. Here he worked as a school teacher.
In 1938, Bakhtin had his right leg amputated. However, health problems did not break the thinker. He continued his scientific activity.
Mikhail Bakhtin after the Great Patriotic War
After the end of the war with the Nazis, Bakhtin, who had lived in Saransk in recent years, visited the capital of the USSR. He presented to the scientific community his research work on the work of Rabelais. Having successfully defended himself, Mikhail Mikhailovich became a candidate of sciences. Returning to Saransk, Bakhtin until 1961 worked at the Department of General Literature at the Pedagogical Institute, which was renamed Mordovia State University in 1957.
Between 1930 and 1961, Bakhtin's works were not published. The scientist returned to the scientific space of the country in the 60s. This was done by his students, literary scholars V. Kozhinova, G. Gacheva, S. Bocharova, V. Turbina.
At the end of the 60s, Bakhtin left Saransk and moved to Moscow. Here he managed to publish his work on Rabelais and to republish a study on the work of Dostoevsky. At the same time, the scientist prepared for publication a collection of articles on literature, which was published only after the death of the thinker.
The fate of Mikhail Bakhtin's creative legacy
Soon the main works of Bakhtin were translated and became widely known abroad. The work of the Russian thinker gained particular popularity in France and Japan, where a huge number of monographs have been published about Bakhtin. In England, at the University of Sheffield, the Bakhtin Center operates, where educational and scientific work is carried out.
In the early 90s, a journal of scientific research on the legacy of Mikhail Bakhtin began to be published in Vitebsk, and then in Moscow.
A significant place in the work of the thinker is occupied by issues of drama and theatrical art. He has done a lot in the field of stage philosophy. Bakhtin's concept of theatrical aesthetics and the ideas of "theatricality" became especially relevant at the end of the 20th century. Central to Bakhtin's views was the idea that "the world is a theater."
It is now generally accepted that Mikhail Bakhtin is one of the greatest Russian thinkers, theorist of art and culture. He was a researcher of language and epic forms in literature. Some of his works are devoted to the genre of the European novel. Bakhtin is considered the founder of a new concept of polyphonism in a literary work. Exploring the principles of François Rabelais, the philosopher promoted the theory of "folk laughter culture", which is characterized by the principle of universality. The Russian philosopher and literary critic introduced the concepts of chronotope, menippea, polyphonism, laughter culture, and carnivalization into scientific circulation.
Currently, there is a kind of intellectual circle of scientific and philosophical orientation, which is called the "Bakhtin's circle".
Mikhail Bakhtin passed away on March 7, 1975 in the capital of the USSR.
