21 Jan [Journal] 37
37
START DATE:
April 1976 [January 1976]
END DATA:
1981
PLACE OF EDITION:
Leningrad-Moscow
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Viktor Krivulin, Tat’jana Goričeva, Lev Rudkevič. In the no. 3 the areas of competence are added to the names of the three main editors: Goričeva for theology, philosophy and translations; Krivulin for poetry, prose, publication of unpublished materials, chronicle of cultural events; Rudkevič for the scientific sections.
COLLABORATORS:
Evgenij Pazuchin, no. Šarimova (pseudonym Kononova), Georgij Somov, Elena Švarc.
TOTAL NUMBERS:
21. At the moment we have no news on nos. 13 and 19
DESCRIPTION:
Released in twenty-one issues from 1976 to 1981, the journal came out in Leningrad and Moscow almost every month and was edited after the publisher Sovetskij pisatel’ refused to publish the anthology Leptain the spring of 1975.
The title of the journal refers to the street number of the apartment located on the Obvodnyj Kanal in Leningrad and rented by the founders of the magazine, Tat’jana Goričeva and Viktor Krivulin, where, on Fridays, philosophical and philological seminars took place (37 is also a clear reference to the symbolic year of Stalinist repression, and according to Krivulin’s testimony, to the symbol of artistic creation).
The first issue came out in April 1976, but was dated back to 18 January of the same year. From the first issue the editors specified the purpose of the periodical as bringing to light that culture submerged by the prevailing socialist realism (see no. 1, 1976, p. 1).
Copyright issues are immediately highlighted. In the no. 3 of 1976 appeared the words “Запрещена перепечатка отдельных материалов без разрешения” (Reproduction of individual materials is forbidden without permission), then “При перепечатке отдельных материалов необходима ссылка на журнал ’37′” (For the reproduction of individual materials it is necessaryto cite the journal «37», no. 4 of 1976) and finally “Авторские права резервируются” (copyright reserved) is present in the other numbers with the exception of the last number 21 November 1980-December 1981.
The main interests of the magazine cover philosophy (with particular attention to the problems of phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and structuralism), topics concerning natural sciences and humanities (of which Lev Rudkevič was in charge), translations, interviews, chronicles of major cultural events, book reviews, publication of unpublished essays, memoirs, letters by thinkers, poets, scholars, as well as texts in poetry and prose by authors that were not available to the general public.
Among the poets and prose writers, besides Krivulin himself, the names Gennadij Bezzubov (pseudonym of Gennadij Kiev), Vsevolod Nekrasov (no. 15, 1978, no. 17, 1979), Elena Švarc (no. 18, 1979), Lev Rubinštejn (no. 15, 1978), Leonid Aronzon (1940-1970) (no. 12, 1977), Bela Ulanovskaja (no. 12, 1977), Oleg Ochapkin (no. 2, 1976; no. 3 1976, later collaborator also of “Severnaja počta”, V. Nečaev (no. 2, 1976), Georgij Somov (no. 2, 1976), and authors of Muscovite conceptualism, such as Dmitrij Prigov (no. 17, 1979) and of the neo-avant-garde, such as Genrich Sapgir (no. 3, 1976, also a signature of “Severnaja počta”).
The magazine hosted a series of columns that it preserved over time such as “Poetry and prose”, in which appeared the verses of Krivulin, P. Čejgin, A. Ožiganov, I. Ždanov; «Critics» (Kritika); «Translations» (Perevody); «Chronicle» (Chronika, then also Chronicle of cultural life, «Chronika kul’turnoj žizni», no. 14 1978); and others of a more occasional nature such as «Science» (Nauka , no. 3, 1976); «Philosophy of Creation» (Filosofija tvorčestva, no. 17 1979, no. 18 of 1979); «Philosophy and Religion» (Filosofija i religija, no. 17 1979, no. 18 of 1979, also present as «Filosofija, religija», no. 3, 1976); «Literature and criticism» (Literatura i kritika, no. 18, 1979); and «Contemporary culture» (Sovremennaja kul’tura, no. 21 of 1980-1981 ).
To this variegated mass of materials were added some chapters of Kul’tura dvaby Vladimir Papernyj into the section «Cultural studies» (Kul’turologija, no. 20 and no. 21). In no. 20 of 1980 the emigration of Goričeva was also taken into account, who was defined as “an individual without whom it is difficult to imagine contemporary culture in Russia”, p. 207). The whole issue was devoted to her.
A clear interest in European philosophy is demonstrated by the numerous translations of thinkers such as S. Kierkegaard (no. 1 1976), M. Heidegger (no. 2, 1976; no. 3, 1976), Malthus (no. 2, 1976), E. Fegelin (no. 18 1979) and by articles signed by Goričeva such as “The fight for naturalism” (Bor’ba za naturalizm, no. 1, 1976, republished in no. 25 of 1980 of “Časy”) in which the author reconstructed the history of naturalism through philosophers such as Husserl and Scheler. Philosophical contributions also included those of I. Suicidov (pseudonym of Boris Grojs), author of essays dedicated to the relationship between art and religion (no. 2, 1976). Furthermore, the magazine was particularly linked to the philosophical-religious seminar promoted by Goričeva and Sergej Stratanovskij between 1974 and 1980. Russian philosophy also had an important space: indeed, texts of protagonists of the national philosophy of the first decades were reproduced like Pavel Florenskij (the “Conclusions” chapter, “Itogi” taken from U vodorazdelov mysli, published in issue 2, 1976), and philosophical contributions to Russian twentieth-century authors often censured as Andrej Platonov (S.V., Zametki or proze A. Platonova, no. 17, 1979).
Another fundamental task the journal was involved in was the publication of Muscovite conceptualism works as some fragments of Autocodex-74and the full text of Ėto vsë(It is all) by Lev Rubinštejn, appeared in no. 15 of 1978, the essays by Grojs (Moskovskij romatičeskij konceptualizm, pp. 47-62) and the additional notes of A.M. (Dopol’nitel’nye kommentarii. Po povodu stat’i – no. [sic!] Grojsa Moskovskij romatičeskij konceptualizm, no. 16 1978 pp. 73-74) that still found space in the numbers of 1978 (nno. 15 and 16), sometimes preceded by introductory notes (this was the case of the introduction signed by M. Šejkner).
NOTES:
The filing was conducted based on the samizdat collection of the University of Toronto (ttps://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/).
LITERATURE:
A. Komaromi, The Leningrad Samizdat Journal 37 and the Modernist Legacy in C. Ciepiela, L. Fleishman (ed. by), New Studies in Modern Russian Literature and Culture. Essays in Honor of Stanley J. Rabinowitz, Stanford Slavic Studies, Vol. 46, Part II, Stanford 2014, pp. 366-391.
V. Parisi, Il lettore eccedente. Edizioni periodiche del samizdat sovietico (1956-1990), Il Mulino, Bologna 2013, pp. 99, 112, 158-164, 180.
M. Sabbatini, «Quel che si metteva in rima». Cultura e poesia underground a Leningrado, Collana Europa Orientalis, Salerno 2008, pp. 207-211.
[Giuseppina Larocca]
[19th January 2018]
© Le immagini sono disponibili sul sito:
https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/samizdat:root e sono state concesse dall’Istituto per gli studi dell’Europa orientale presso l’Università di Brema (Forschungsstelle Osteuropa an der Universität Bremen).