Humanity studies of Russian abroad: to 140th anniversary from the birthday of Piotr M. Bitsilli. The international conference at IWL RAS

The article presents a review of the International conference “Humanity studies of Russia Abroad: to 140th anniversary from the birthday of Piotr M. Bitsilli”. The conference was organized by A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the assistance of The Library and Museum of Russian Philosophy and Culture “The Losev House” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad and took place in Moscow, 18-19th of November, 2019. The conference was the first event in Russia dedicated to P.M. Bitsilli and his contribution to the formation of historical studies and the humanities of the Russian Abroad in general. Piotr Mikhailovich Bitsilli (1879-1953) is outstanding scholar who created fundamental works on the theory of history, cultural studies, Russian literature, linguistics. The rich heritage of the scholar who lived and worked in Bulgaria since the beginning of the 1920s, became available to the Russian readers only a little more than a quarter of a century ago. Nevertheless, as the conference showed, the publication of works by Bitsilli and its analysis by modern researchers are intensive. That really allows us to speak about a special direction of humanities like “Bitsillian studies”. The purpose of this review is to outline the issues that have been the focus of the conference. It is demonstrated the discussion was focused on the majority of problems that were the subject Bitsilli’s constant interest, including problems of a philosophical, historical and philological nature.