Framing Semantic Paleontology: The 1930s and Beyond

The presence of semantic paleontology in Soviet literary and cultural theory and its wider relevance for the ideological debates of the 1930s have never before been examined systematically. I attempt such an examination in the present article. At the outset, I outline the foundations of semantic paleontology and its interventions in the study of literature during the 1930s; as a next step, the analysis focuses on the principal methodological distinctions which semantic paleontology sought to draw in order to assert its own identity vis-à-vis other trends. Subsequent sections explore the significance of semantic paleontology for the 1930s polemics on the boundaries of modernity and weigh its impact on cultural and literary theory. As will become evident, this impact did not follow the channels of official recognition, yet it persisted into the early 1980s, at times paradoxically reinforced by the criticism which semantic paleontology attracted.