OPOYaZ

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Salons, Circles, Creative Associations and Unions
OPOYaZ (the Society for Studying Poetic Language), one of the trends of the formal school of literary criticism. The history of OPOYaZ started from the publication of the brochure by V. B. Shklovsky Resurrection of the Word (1914). It was connected with futurism at its early stage. In February 1917 it was established as a society. Shklovsky, O. M. Brik, L. P. Yakubinsky, E. D. Polivanov, B. M. Eichenbaum, Y. N. Tynyanov, B. V. Tomashevsky, V. M. Zhirmunsky, and also V. V. Vinogradov (he was at the periphery of the movement owing to originality of his views) participated in its work at different stages, members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle R. O. Yakobson and G. O. Vinokur participated in it from the beginning of the 1920s. Having appeared as a reaction to the eclecticism of academic and symbolist criticism, OPOYaZ used linguistic methodology in his analysis of artistic work treating the artistic shape as a specific characteristic of art, defending a thesis about its structural character. He put forward the idea of distance as a method breaking the automatism of perception and leading the history of literature. In 1916-23, OPOYaZ published Sborniki po Teorii Poeticheskogo Yazyka (the Collections on the Theory of Poetic Language) (issues 1-6; the third issue under the name Poetika (Poetics)), a number of articles and separate research works. Principles of OPOYaZ were developed in the activity of the Prague Linguistic Circle (1926 - beginning of the 1950s), in the works by French structuralists of the 1960-70s. Meetings of OPOYaZ were held at the Institute of Art History (5 Vorovskogo Square, today St. Isaac's Square), in the House of Art where Shklovsky lived, in the flat of Tynyanov (15/8 Grechesky Avenue).

References: Юрий Тынянов: Писатель и ученый: Воспоминания. Размышления. Встречи. М., 1966; Шкловский В. Б. Жили-были: Воспоминания, мемуар. записи, повести о времени: с конца XIX по 1964 г. М., 1966; Ханзен-Леве А. Русский формализм. М., 2001.

T. M. Dvinyatina. Brik Osip Maximovich
Eichenbaum Boris Mikhailovich
Polivanov Evgeny Dmitrievich
Shklovsky Viktor Borisovich
Tomashevsky Boris Viktorovich
Tynyanov Yury Nikolaevich
Vinogradov Viktor Vladimirovich
Vinokur Grigory Osipovich
Yakobson Roman Osipovich
Yakubinsky Lev Petrovich
Zhirmunsky Viktor Maximovich
Grechesky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 15/8
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city, house 5
Шкловский В. Б. Жили-были: Воспоминания, мемуар. записи, повести о времени: с конца XIX по 1964 г. М., 1966
Юрий Тынянов: Писатель и ученый: Воспоминания. Размышления. Встречи. М., 1966
Ханзен-Лёве А. Русский формализм. М., 2001