Russian formalism was a school of literary criticism in Russia from the 1910s to the 1930s. It includes the work of a number of highly influential Russian and Soviet scholars such as Viktor Shklovsky, ...

When did Russian formalism started?

Introduction: Russian Formalism, 1915-1930. Russian Formalism was an active movement in literary criticism for only fifteen years, but has provoked a continuous flow of scholarship both in the Soviet Union and abroad since its earliest days. Discussion of this critical movement is still going on today.

Who started Russian formalism?

It began in two groups: OPOYAZ, an acronym for Russian words meaning Society for the Study of Poetic Language, founded in 1916 at St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and led by Viktor Shklovsky; and the Moscow Linguistic Circle, founded in 1915.