Vitebsk circle of M.M. Bakhtin: a thinking collective or an informal group of intellectuals

In the context of the revolutionary reorganization of society at the turn of the 1910s and 1920s, when M.M. Bakhtin lived in Nevel’ and in Vitebsk, new social statuses became essential. The important thing is whether at that time Bakhtin claimed such statuses. Did he claim leadership in an informal group of intellectuals? Definitely, from the position of historical distance, based on his own assessments, we can conclude that he claimed. These assessments were a tribute to the new place that the scientist was given in the humanities of the 20th century by followers who made considerable efforts to return his name and merits. Bakhtin accepted the new rules of the game and joined it. In this regard, his own evidence (and, as we have seen, he was prone to hoaxes and myth-making) must be subjected to an objective assessment. To what extent was his place in the groups of intellectuals leading in Nevel’, in Vitebsk and Leningrad. To what extent does this recognition of this leadership reflect the true state of affairs? The academic biography of a scientist should give a comprehensive answer to this and other questions. Obviously, the problem of the Bakhtin Circle is directly related to the problem of authorship. In a sense, this is a way of explaining the phenomenon of the early maturity of Bakhtin's scientific ideas. This article is the result of the author's many years of work on the problem of Bakhtin's circle, which began in the 1990s and continues to the present day.