Formalisti

Formalisti, usually known in English as the Russian Formalists, were a group of literary theorists active in Russia from the 1910s to the 1920s. They sought to study literature primarily through its formal features—how a text constructs meaning through devices, structure, and technique—rather than through its subject matter, author biography, or social context. Their aim was to define literariness as a distinct quality produced by form.

They emerged from networks such as the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOJAZ) and the Moscow Linguistic Circle. Central to their program was the idea that art operates via devices and methods that create defamiliarization and effect, and that close attention to form reveals how poetry and prose produce their effects. They emphasized that literary analysis should focus on how literary works function as artworks, not on what they represent in the world.

Key concepts associated with the Formalists include defamiliarization (ostranenie), a claim that art makes the familiar strange to renew perception; and the priority of technique in producing meaning. They advocated close reading of textual form, paying attention to rhythm, narrative sequence, focalization, and other formal aspects to understand the work’s impact.

Prominent figures include Viktor Shklovsky, Dmitry Tomashevsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, and Yuri Tynyanov, with later influence from Roman Jakobson. Notable works discuss the role of devices in prose and drama and the dynamics of literary art. The Formalists are seen as a precursor to structuralism and narratology, and their emphasis on form contributed to ongoing debates about how literature should be analyzed, though their prominence waned under Soviet political pressures.