Russian Formalism is one of the most important schools of literary criticism to understand before any competitive literature exam. It changed how we think about what makes a text “literary” and shifted attention away from an author’s biography or historical background toward the text itself. This post covers the origins of Russian Formalism, its key theorists, central concepts like defamiliarization and literariness, and exactly how these ideas appear in exam questions.
Table of Contents
Background and Historical Context
Russian Formalism emerged around 1915 and flourished through the 1920s in Russia. It grew out of two main groups: OPOJAZ (the Society for the Study of Poetic Language), founded in St. Petersburg in 1916, and the Moscow Linguistic Circle. These groups brought together literary scholars and linguists who were dissatisfied with earlier critical approaches that treated literature as a vehicle for historical, biographical, or moral content.
The movement was shaped by a larger intellectual climate that wanted to make literary study more rigorous and scientific. Scholars like Viktor Shklovsky, Roman Jakobson, Boris Eichenbaum, Yuri Tynianov, Vladimir Propp, Boris Tomashevsky, and Grigory Gukovsky were central to this effort. They asked a simple but radical question: what exactly makes a literary work different from any other use of language? That question drove the entire Formalist project.
By the late 1920s, the Soviet state’s growing hostility toward anything that ignored ideology pushed Formalism into decline inside Russia. But the ideas traveled west. Roman Jakobson emigrated and brought Formalist thinking to Prague, where it shaped the Prague School, and later to America, where it influenced structuralism and New Criticism.
Key Concepts Explained Simply
Literariness
The single most important concept in Russian Formalism is “literariness” (literaturnost). The Formalists argued that literary criticism should not study literature in general but should identify the specific quality that makes a text literary. Roman Jakobson put it directly: “The object of literary science is not literature but literariness, i.e. what makes a given work a literary work.”
Literariness is not about content, theme, or moral message. It is about the formal and linguistic features that distinguish literary language from ordinary speech. A news report and a poem can describe the same event. What makes the poem literary is how it uses language, not what it says.
Defamiliarization (Ostranenie)
Defamiliarization is the concept most associated with Russian Formalism, and it is the one most likely to appear on your exam. Viktor Shklovsky introduced it in his landmark 1917 essay “Art as Technique” (also translated as “Art as Device”). The Russian word is ostranenie, literally meaning “making strange.”
The core argument is this: in everyday life, perception becomes automatic. You stop truly seeing familiar objects because habit has made them invisible. Literature’s job is to break that automation. A literary text makes familiar things feel unfamiliar, forcing the reader to slow down and actually perceive them.
Tolstoy’s story Kholstomer is a classic example. It is narrated from a horse’s perspective, which makes ordinary human institutions like property ownership seem bizarre and strange. Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm work the same way. They use an unusual vantage point to defamiliarize things we take for granted.
Fabula and Syuzhet
Russian Formalists drew a distinction between fabula and syuzhet that became foundational in narrative theory. Fabula refers to the raw chronological sequence of events in a story, the “what happened” in the order it actually occurred. Syuzhet refers to how those events are arranged and presented in the actual text.
A novel might begin at the end of the story (in medias res) and flash back repeatedly. The fabula remains the same, but the syuzhet is what the author has artistically constructed. Formalists were interested in syuzhet because it reveals the conscious craft behind a narrative.
The Dominant
Roman Jakobson and Yuri Tynianov developed the concept of the “dominant,” which refers to the primary organizing feature of a literary work. It is the element that pulls all other elements into its orbit. In a lyric poem, the dominant might be sound patterning or rhythm. In a novel, it might be plot structure or a central symbol. The dominant organizes and controls the relationship between all other devices in the text.
Foregrounding and Literary Device
Formalists argued that literary language works by foregrounding certain linguistic features, bringing them into prominence so the reader notices them. This is closely related to defamiliarization. When a poet uses unusual syntax or a striking metaphor, that element is foregrounded. It pulls the reader’s attention and resists automatic, habitual reading.
A “device” in Formalist terms is any technique, structural or linguistic, that a writer uses to produce a literary effect. The Formalists insisted that the device itself, not any meaning it carries, was the proper object of literary study.
Important Quotes from Theorists
“Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.” — Viktor Shklovsky, Art as Technique
Shklovsky here makes a bold claim: the content of a literary work matters less than the technique used to present it. For exams, this quote signals the Formalist break from content-focused criticism.
“The object of literary science is not literature but literariness, i.e. what makes a given work a literary work.” — Roman Jakobson
This is one of the most frequently cited lines in all of literary theory. It defines the entire Formalist project. Jakobson is saying that criticism must identify the specific formal quality that separates literature from other language use.
“Habitualisation devours work, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.” — Viktor Shklovsky, Art as Technique
This quote explains why defamiliarization matters. Habit makes us stop perceiving the world. Shklovsky argues that art exists to restore perception by breaking habitual, automatic responses.
“A new form is not born to express a new content, but to replace an old form that has lost its artistic force.” — Viktor Shklovsky
This quote captures the Formalist theory of literary evolution. Forms change not because society changes but because old forms lose their ability to defamiliarize. Once a technique becomes familiar and automatic, it stops working as art.
Exam Relevance: Key Points for Competitive Exams
Russian Formalism is a high-frequency topic in literature exams. Here is what you need to know to answer questions confidently.
If you want a broader foundation before studying individual movements, A Complete Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism is a useful starting point on litgram.in.
- Exams often test the distinction between fabula (story events in chronological order) and syuzhet (the artistic arrangement of those events in the text). Know both terms and be ready to apply them.
- The term ostranenie (defamiliarization) is a direct exam target. Questions ask for its meaning, who coined it, which essay introduced it, and which texts illustrate it. Always connect it to Shklovsky’s “Art as Technique” (1917).
- Questions on “literariness” often ask who defined it and what it means. The answer is Jakobson, and the meaning is the formal quality that distinguishes literary language from ordinary language.
- Russian Formalism is frequently contrasted with New Criticism (both focus on the text, but New Criticism emphasized close reading of meaning while Formalism focused on devices and form) and with Marxist criticism (which attacked Formalism for ignoring ideology and social content).
- The Prague School is the direct successor to Russian Formalism. Questions sometimes ask where the center of Formalist research migrated in the 1930s. The answer is Prague.
Quick Revision: Key Points to Remember
- Russian Formalism emerged around 1915 in Russia, centered on OPOJAZ in St. Petersburg and the Moscow Linguistic Circle.
- The movement’s central question was: what is “literariness,” the quality that makes a text literary?
- Viktor Shklovsky introduced defamiliarization (ostranenie) in his 1917 essay “Art as Technique,” arguing that literature makes the familiar seem strange to restore perception.
- Fabula is the raw chronological sequence of story events; syuzhet is how those events are arranged in the actual text.
- Roman Jakobson developed the concept of the “dominant,” the primary organizing element that controls all other features in a literary work.
- The Formalists insisted that literary study should focus on devices and formal techniques, not on an author’s biography or historical context.
- Soviet Marxist criticism attacked Formalism in the late 1920s for ignoring ideological content, which led to its decline in Russia.
- Formalist ideas migrated to Prague in the 1930s and later influenced structuralism and Western literary theory through Roman Jakobson.
Conclusion
Russian Formalism redrew the boundaries of literary criticism by insisting that form, not content, is what makes literature literary. Its three most exam-critical ideas are defamiliarization, literariness, and the fabula/syuzhet distinction. Understanding these concepts gives you a strong foundation not just for questions on Formalism but for understanding structuralism, narratology, and New Criticism, all of which built on Formalist groundwork. Russian Formalism, despite its short active life, set the terms for how literary theory thinks about language, form, and the nature of literary art.
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