Bakhtin and Lunacharsky: A Dialogue

Abstract

Starting by Lunacharsky's critical review of the book Problems of Dostoevsky's Art, published in 1929 and Bakhtin's reply, in 1963, in the second version of his book, entitled Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, this essay establishes a confrontation between the two critics. Consistent with Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, which extrapolates the category concrete dialogue, this study shows the dialogical relations between both thinkers and the aesthetic ideologies in circulation in the Soviet Union, as well as convergences and divergences between them. Finally, the essay highlights the influence of their positions in the Soviet society in each text. As the People's Commissar for Education and Culture, Lunacharsky represents the official thought of the Party (although he had never been as dogmatic as the official doctrine that was to be imposed); Bakhtin, in his relative marginality, prior to his recognition, produces his texts from a position discreetly dissonant from the official discourse of the Soviet government.