Permanent Evolution

A key figure in the Russian Formalist school of literary theory, Yuri Tynianov sought to revolutionize—and liberate—thinking about literature and the other arts. Permanent Evolution gathers together for the first time Tynianov’s seminal articles on literary theory and film.

Tynianov Yuri :

Yuri Tynianov (1894-1943) was a Russian writer and literary theorist, and a central figure among the revolutionary-era scholars who came to be known as the Russian Formalists.Morse Ainsley :

Ainsley Morse is a teacher, translator, and scholar of Slavic language and literatures, primarily Russian. She currently teaches at Pomona College.Redko Philip :

Philip Redko is a translator, editor, and teacher. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Harvard and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Yuri Tynianov (1894-1943) was a Russian writer and literary theorist, and a central figure among the revolutionary-era scholars who came to be known as the Russian Formalists.

Ainsley Morse is a literary translator and an assistant professor in the Russian Department at Dartmouth College. Her scholarly work is focused on literature of the twentieth century, particularly the Soviet period. She has translated poetry, prose and scholarly works from Russian and the languages of the former Yugoslavia.

Philip Redko is a translator, editor, and teacher. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Harvard and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"[A] lucid, rigorous translation."

– Sophie Pinkham, The New York Review of Books


“A well-rounded collection of Tynianov’s writings, skilfully translated and edited by Ainsley Morse and Philip Redko, reintroduces him to English-speaking readers… Permanent Evolution gathers some of Tynianov’s seminal writings on Russian poetry, literary theory, and film, many of them translated for the first time… Morse and Redko’s new translation brilliantly unveils the dynamic and versatile nature of Tynianov’s thought. Without losing the idiosyncrasies of Tynianov’s style, the editors-translators succeeded in rendering his writing into elegant, clear theoretical prose. As a result, Tynianov’s project reappears as a strikingly relevant contribution to the contemporary study of cultural transformation… ​​Reflecting the broad scope of his project, the collection reveals several new paths of establishing Tynianov as a key figure of twentieth-century intellectual history; as a visionary forerunner of French postmodernism, an early theorist of experimental film, and a courageously undogmatic thinker. In times like ours, suspicious of satirical excess, Tynianov’s vision of a ‘dogma-free world’ feels curiously adventurous.”

– Isabel Jacobs, Apparatus: Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe


"In this climate, a collection of Yuri Tynianov’s critical essays is especially welcome, and we are indebted to Ainsley Morse and Philip Redko, the editors and translators of Permanent Evolution, for bringing out this first major selection of Tynianov’s scholarship in English. Perhaps the least known but also most provocative of the great Russian Formalist theorists, Tynianov takes as his premise that literary works are part of a larger and distinctive whole with its own laws and family resemblances. It is the critic’s job to cut pathways through this rich and elaborate jungle… In comparison with most theorists who are fashionable today, Tynianov strikes me as largely accessible, even though he deals with works unfamiliar to most American readers. His theory of literature as system is paradoxically quite flexible, allowing for complexity and difference. His analysis of the rise, fall, and rebirth of the major genres and their inherent rules is remarkably lively and convincing. This collection comes to us at a moment where literary study badly needs a new infusion of adrenaline: how fortunate that Morse and Redko have provided it."

—Marjorie Perloff, Professor Emerita of English at Stanford University, The Los Angeles Review of Books


"As Daria Khitrova argues convincingly in her erudite and witty introduction to Permanent Evolution: Selected essays on literature, theory and film, the ideas of [Yuri] Tynyanov in particular remain ‘largely overlooked or unknowingly reinvented by scholars of different disciplines’. Discerningly edited and adroitly translated by Ainsley Morse and Philip Redko, Permanent Evolution traces the development of Tynyanov’s theories... Tynyanov comes closest to capturing the totality of his vision in ‘On Literary Evolution’ (1927), the end of which reads as both a summation of his true beliefs and a plea for understanding in an atmosphere growing increasingly hostile to the study of literature for literature’s sake… That cautiously staked-out position was a daring one to take in Tynyanov’s time, and it may seem no less heterodox today, when key political and social questions are again at the centre of literary debate. This makes the essays in Permanent Evolution feel freshly relevant and provocative, and their reemergence should enshrine them as a vital scholarly fact."

“If ever there was an overdue project in literary-theoretical scholarship, this is it. Thanks to the tireless work of Ainsley Morse and Philip Redko, this volume recovers one of the most important thinkers of Russian Formalist literary theory for the English-language reader, in precise translations with excellent explanatory apparatus. It will immediately become an essential reference work and important teaching tool.”

—Kevin M.F. Platt, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania


“Yuri Tynianov was one of the major literary scholars of the twentieth century, yet his work remains almost unknown outside of Russia. The present collection of essays, carefully translated and richly annotated, should rectify this situation. Permanent Evolution gives Anglophone readers the opportunity to acquaint themselves with Tynianov’s distinctive approach to a wide range of subjects, from neoclassicism to Romanticism to the avant-garde, from parody to translation to literary history, from poetry and prose to film. Throughout, meticulous close readings lead to broad theoretical conclusions that remain suggestive, compelling, and applicable almost a century after their composition.”

—Michael A. Wachtel, Professor, Chair, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University