Literary Microhistories. Models and Perspectives in the Slavic Area (edited by Emilio Mari and Mikhail Velizhev)
Vol. 16 (2023): Literary Microhistories. Models and Perspectives in the Slavic Area
Carlo Ginzburg, historian, was born in 1939. During his rich academic career, he taught modern history at the University of Bologna and the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, and in the United States, at the universities of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he became professor (now emeritus). Ginzburg’s field of research is extremely large: he has published several articles and monographs in history, from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, philology, history of the arts, history of literature, history of philosophy and political philosophy. Another of his major scientific interests is the methodology of the human sciences. Ginzburg is best known as one of the founding fathers of microhistory. Together with Giovanni Levi, he directed the “Microhistories” series published by Einaudi in the 1980s. His awards include the Aby Warburg Prize (1992), the Prix Antonio Feltrinelli per le scienze storiche (2005), the Humboldt-Forschungspreis (2007), the Balzan Prize for European History, 1400-1700 (2010), and the Tomasi di Lampedusa Prize (2019). His bibliography include such books as: I benandanti (1966), Il formaggio e i vermi (1976), Indagini su Piero (1981), Miti, emblemi, spie (1986), La storia notturna (1989), Il giudice e lo storico (1991), Gli occhiacci di legno (1998), I rapporti di forza (2000), Nessuna isola è un’isola (2002), Il filo e le tracce (2006), Paura reverenza terrore (2013), Nondimanco. Machiavelli, Pascal (2018), La lettera uccide (2021) which have been translated into over 20 languages.
Emilio Mari is Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at Sapienza – University of Rome, where he graduated with honors in 2012 and 2013. In 2017 he received his Ph.D in Literary, Linguistic and Comparative Studies from the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ and in 2019-2021 worked as a Research Fellow at the International University of Rome – UNINT. His areas of research include: the semiotics of space and the relationships between Russian literature, architecture and landscape; Russian popular culture, folklore and mass culture; microhistory of the USSR, politics and practices of everyday life (leisure studies, material culture and consumer studies); critical theory and cultural theory; Russian theatre and performing studies. He is a co-editor of “eSamizdat. Journal of Slavic Cultures” and the author of the books Between the Rural and the Urban: Landscape and Popular Culture in Petersburg, 1830-1917 (2018) and A Cruel Romance. Aesthetics and Politics of Folklore in 20th century Russia (2023).
Mikhail Velizhev is a specialist in Russian and European intellectual history and history of Russian literature. He holds two doctoral degrees – from the State University of the Humanities (2004) and the University of Milan (2006). In 2007-2008 he was a Max Weber fellow at the European University Institute in Fiesole (EUI). Until 2022 he was professor of Russian literature and culture at the Higher School of Economics University (Moscow, Russia). His field of research includes history of Russian literature and culture, Russian intellectual history, history of political thought, methodology of human sciences, microhistory. Velizhev is one of the editors of the “Intellectual History” series of the “Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie” publishing house, which also contains two special series devoted to microhistory and Italian studies. He published several articles and books, in particular Civilization, or War of the Worlds (2019) and Chaadaev’s Affair: Ideology, Rhetoric and Power in Russia in the Epoch of Nicholas I (2022).
Interview with Carlo Ginzburg.