Bakhtin's conception of laughter in the works of the literary scholars of the Volga region

The subject of the article is the relevance of Bakhtin's concept of laughter in the literary studies of the Volga region. The object of the article consists of monographs, dissertations and scholarly articles written by the literary scholars of the Volga region. The goal of the project is to articulate the issue of rethinking the way national folk literary materials are researched using the Bakhtin's concept of laughter. Research methodology is based on the principles of Russian academic literary studies. The author uses the typological method and the method of comparative historical research. Research results: the article presents analytic review of literary researches focusing on the issues of the comical; the author traced the history of the reception of Bakhtin's theory of laughter in the literary studies of the Volga region. Application of research results: the articulated issue can serve as a foundation for a new approach to studying folk and literary pieces. And thus a possible typology of national literatures of the Volga region can be set up. Findings: there is a strong interest in the issues of laughter and the comical in the regional culture and literature, which suggests a decisive new phase of using Bakhtin's concept of laughter.