Review of Tagir Gilazov’s monograph “Tukay studies: The ways to understand and to explore”

Abstract

The article considers T. Gilazov’s work “Tukay Studies: The Ways to Understand and to Explore” as an object of our review. The article clarifies the contribution of this scientific publication to the research into the life and work of Tukay. It states that the scholarly and critical literature, dedicated to the poet, is studied, on the one hand, in the national-public, Tatar spiritual-cultural and literary-aesthetic aspects; on the other hand, it is done in the context of Eastern and Western cultures. This determines the relevance and scientific novelty of the article. The article highlights the significance of the T. Gilazov’s monographic work for literary science during the 20^th–early 21^st centuries. Firstly, this publication is a systemic research into the consistent, long-term, holistic development of Tukay studies, a comprehensive account of the trends reflecting its changes, transformations and the main stages of the poet’s creativity development. Secondly, the article establishes that the systematic work on Tukay’s studies reveals the turns in the development of Tatar literary and aesthetic thought and the history of literary criticism. Thirdly, the focus is on the fact that comprehensive work on Tukay studies, as a holistic system, can become a conceptual, methodological “key” to the study of the literary and historical heritage of other writers. Fourthly, the article argues that I. Nurullin’s monograph, which determines the place held by the ideological and aesthetic representation of Tukay’s spiritual heritage, made a significant contribution to literary criticism in historical and dialectical aspects.