The critical texts of David Vygodsky

• Grant number: 13/10866-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: November 15, 2013
• End date: March 14, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Comparative Literature
• Principal Investigator: Bruno Barretto Gomide
• Grantee: Bruno Barretto Gomide
• Host Investigator: William Mills Todd III
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Abstract

In the history of Russian and Soviet culture the career of David Isaakovitch Vygodski (1893-1943) is not well-known. Vygodski was a brilliant essayist and poet and a translator of 20 languages, particularly Spanish and Portuguese; he devoted himself more closely to this in the twenties and thirties until his arrest in 1938 and his death five years later in the Gulag. Within the Soviet intellectual context he communicated with important writers and critics, such as Iúri Tynianov and Ossip Mandelstam. Vygodski promoted a number of Latin American authors in the USSR during that period and also kept up an intense correspondence with them. The purpose of this research project is to collect, study and translate Vygodskt´s critical articles (roughly 200 texts), using bibliographical material available in Harvard´s outstanding libraries and research facilities. (AU)