Balashov, Nikolai Ivanovich

N. I. Balashov was born in Kherson . In 1920, the family moved to Odessa . There, in 1936, N. I. Balashov graduated with honors from high school, where he studied German, French and Ukrainian. From 1936 to 1941 he was a student of the Romano-Germanic branch of the philological faculty of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History (MIFLI), who also graduated with honors. He studied French and Italian literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, French poetry from the middle of the XIX century, as well as foreign languages ​​- Latin, Italian, English, Old French, Polish, improved knowledge of German and French. In 1939-1941 , he studied the problems of the connection of literature with the visual arts. In 1940, N.I. Balashov was awarded a personal scholarship named after V.V. Mayakovsky . Having defended his thesis on the topic “Nodal moments of the development of French painting of the 19th century”, in 1941 he received the qualification of a scientific worker in the field of Western literature and languages, a university teacher, and also the title of high school teacher.

In 1942 - 1945 he studied at graduate school , where he studied the basics of the ancient Greek language under the guidance of corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. I. Sobolevsky . Since 1944, he was an acting assistant professor , and since 1945, an assistant professor in the department of universal literature of the Moscow City Pedagogical Institute (Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after V.P. Potemkin). In 1944-1946 he worked as a senior inspector for the humanities of the department of research work of the All-Union Committee for Higher School Affairs (from 1946 - the Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR ). In 1945 he received the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences for his thesis “The Evolution of Rambo's Creativity”. In 1952-1955 he taught a course in Spanish literature at the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. During this period, Spanish studies and Spanish-Russian literary relations became the second - after French literature - specialization of N. I. Balashov.

Since 1955, he was mainly engaged in scientific work. Since 1957 he was the head of the literature sector of the socialist countries of Europe, since 1976 - the head of the department of foreign literature of the 20th century at the Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IMLI), where he worked until 1990 .

N.I. Balashov died on November 25, 2006 . He was buried in Moscow at the Troekurovsky cemetery ^[1] .

The main direction of the scientific work of N. I. Balashov was the development of the concept "History of World Literature". He took a direct part in the preparation of the third volume of this publication, as well as the publications History of French Literature and History of German Literature. In addition, he studied the problems of comparative literary criticism and semiotics. Since 1957, he was a member of the editorial board of the journal Izvestiya RAN. A series of literature and language. " In 1959 - 1977 he organized a group of comparative literary collective works on the problems of Hungarian-Russian, Romanian-Russian, Czech-Russian literary relations, the publications of which were carried out in the corresponding languages ​​in Moscow, Budapest , Bucharest , Prague . In 1977, a work generalizing these studies was published entitled "General and Special in the Literature of the Socialist Countries of Europe". Since 1959, N. I. Balashov was a member of the Soviet Committee of Slavists (since 1991 - the National Committee of Slavists of the Russian Federation). In 1960 - 1980 he was engaged in the study of French symbolism and prepared a number of innovative publications of French Symbolist poets. The Témoignage newspaper, published for the first time in the island’s cultural history in Reunion, published a Russian literary work by N. I. Balashov in a French translation by B. Gamaley about the poet Leconte de Lilé , a native of Reunion. In 1962 - 1976 he was a member of the editorial board of the publication “History of German Literature”. Since 1964, he was a member of the editorial board of the Literary Monuments series, since 1990 - deputy chairman of the editorial board, and since 2002 - chairman. In 1967, the first book of poems by French poets of the 19th and 20th centuries , Guillaume Apollinaire, was published in the Literary Monuments series. Poems ”, later took part in the preparation for this series of books by S. Baudelaire (1970), P. Eluard (1971), J. M. Heredia (1973), B. Sandrara (1974), A. Rimbaud (1982).

Participation in scientific events

N. I. Balashov regularly participated in various scientific conferences, congresses, associations. So, in 1958, he participated in the IV International Congress of Slavists, held in Moscow, where he made a presentation on Russian-Spanish literary relations and took part in a polemic about F. M. Dostoevsky . In 1959 he made a scientific trip to Warsaw for the jubilee session of the Polish Academy of Sciences dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the poet Juliusz Slowacki , during which he made a report, co-authored with Ya. V. Stanyukovich, on the topic “Problems of the work of Yu. Slowacki in the beginning of 1840 years. " The report was marked by a jubilee medal named after Juliusz Slowacki. In 1959 - 1960 he undertook scientific trips to Hungary and Romania to study literary relations with Russia. In 1960 - 1978 he participated in the development together with the Hungarian Academy of Labor Sciences on the problems of Renaissance literature. In 1963, took part in the V International Congress of Slavists, held in Bulgaria. There he made a report, “The Renaissance Issues of Spanish Drama of the 17th Century.” on East Slavic themes. " In 1964 he made a trip to study the architectural proportions of the monuments of Ancient Greece , Constantinople , Ancient Egypt . In 1967, in Moscow, he took part in the work of the International Association for Comparative Literary Studies (IASL). In the same year, he participated in the 5th Congress of the ASLA, held in Yugoslavia , where he made a presentation entitled "Slavic themes by Calderon and the Renaissance-Baroque problem in Spanish literature." In 1968, he made a presentation on “The System of Spanish-Slavic Relations and Comparative Literature” at the VI International Congress of Slavists in Czechoslovakia .

• "Renaissance Literature in the Light of Soviet and Hungarian Studies" (1978)

• A free look at literature. Problems of modern philology: to the 60th anniversary of the academic activity of academician N. I. Balashov. - M .: IMLI RAS, 2002;
• Nikolai Ivanovich Balashov. M .: Nauka , 2004 ( Materials for the bibliography of scientists . Ser. Literature and language. Issue 27). - ISBN 5-02-033174-0

• Balashov, Nikolai Ivanovich // Brief Literary Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. A.A. Surkov . - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia , 1962-1978.
• Profile of Nikolai Ivanovich Balashov on the official website of the RAS
• Biographical materials on the website of IMLI
• Page on the site of the series “ Literary Monuments ”
• Page on the website of the Independent Academy of Aesthetics and Liberal Arts
• Lukov Vl. A. Balashov Nikolay Ivanovich in the electronic encyclopedia "Shakespeare's World"
• Lukov Vl. A., Lukov M.V. Balashov Nikolay Ivanovich (Russian) . electronic encyclopedia "Modern French literature" (2011). Date of treatment November 13, 2011. Archived April 2, 2012.
• Historical background on the website of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• Zemskov V. B. Nikolai Ivanovich Balashov (on the occasion of his 75th birthday) // News of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A series of literature and language . - M .: Nauka, 1994. - T. 53. No. 6. - S. 88-91.
• The most lively and open person in all IMLI has died (obituary on the Polit.ru site)
• Balashov N.I., Mikhailov A.D. , Khlodovsky R.I. Age of Renaissance and short story