The Irreconcilable “Unofficial Opponent” of M. M. Bakhtin (Reconstruction of the Biography of M. P. Teryaeva)

Introduction. The relevance of the study lies in the need to create the most objective and accurate scientific biography of M. M. Bakhtin. One of the conditions for achieving this is the recreation of its context, which implies, in particular, the characterization of the representatives of the thinker’s environment: both friends and ill-wishers. The purpose of the article: to give an idea of the personality of the “unofficial opponent” in the defense of M.M. Bakhtin’s dissertation – M. P. Teryaeva. Materials and Methods. The research is based on a variety of sources: the protocol of the defense of M. M. Bakhtin’s dissertation and related materials introduced into scientific circulation by N. A. Pan’kov; texts by M. P. Teryaeva, her sister – V. P. Zazubrina-Teryaeva and her daughter – I. I. Lipilina; scientific, reference, documentary and popular publications, containing information about representatives of the Teryaevs family and persons who were part of their close circle, etc. It employs historical-cultural, comparative-historical and biographical methods. Results and Discussion. The conducted reconstruction of the biography of M. P. Teryaeva shows that her personality was formed in the difficult circumstances of the life of her family, which found itself involved in the cruel, uncompromising events of the revolution and the Civil War, survived the repressions of the 1930s, the losses in the Great Patriotic War. The author presents arguments in favor of the fact that the “image” of M. P. Teryaeva, considered in Bakhtin studies as unambiguously negative, deserves more correct assessments: her attitude to the dissertation of M.M. Bakhtin was not determined by any opportunistic considerations, she was a convinced “fighter” against any (real or imaginary) deviations from the ideals that she defended from her youth and to which she remained faithful to the end. Conclusion. The article contributes to the reconstruction of the historical, literary and socio-cultural context associated with the figure of M. M. Bakhtin, to the elimination of gaps in his scientific biography, to the study of his environment. The conclusions made by the author allow to rethink some key episodes in the history of academic life in the Soviet period, avoiding their simplified, unambiguous interpretations. The materials of the article can be useful for Bakhtin scholars, specialists in the history of social and humanitarian science in the USSR.