M.L. Gasparov balancing Bakhtin and Derrida

Mikhail Gasparov sharply criticized Bakhtin's idea of dialogue as constructivist, nihilistic, and essentialist, mirroring the claims of the historical Russian avant-garde to establish new modes of social relations. In his 1979 article, Gasparov brings the formalists and Bakhtin closer together as opposing mystifications, while in his 2004 article, on the contrary, he declares Bakhtin's main historical-literary discoveries to be mystifications. This shift owes to Gasparov's attention to the practices of deconstruction: denying postmodernism as a set of research programs, Gasparov implemented programs of representations that deny logocentrism both in his literary work and in his later research. In his deconstruction of the subject of Symbolism, Gasparov shows not just an affinity to some of Derrida's theses, but straightforward work within Derrida's program, presumably assimilated through his collaboration with Natalia Avtonomova. The key here was the notion of antinomy, which allowed Gasparov, drawing from structuralism, to apply certain poststructuralist methods to Russian symbolism. In doing so, he identified both the real antinomies of symbolism and the new antinomies that characterize the thought of the second half of the 20th century, which already faced new problems, from new age religiosity to sustainability. Emphasizing Bakhtin's avant-gardism, Gasparov highlights the real antinomies of symbolism, unnoticed by the symbolists themselves, while declaring Bakhtin a mystifier, Gasparov shows the working of antinomies, combining modernist creative projects and accurate literary studies into a single style of discourse with a dominant constructivist emphasis.