ABSTRACT
Mikhail Bakhtin single-handedly denies the validity of the oft-quoted saying that no one is a prophet in his or her homeland. This chapter concentrates on the Russian perception of Bakhtin, the main interpretations of his ideas, and the polemic that the Russian interpreters have initiated with their Western counterparts. It then examines reviews of conferences in Russia and overviews of the Russian reception. The Russian semiotician Mikhail Gasparov made an exceptional contribution to Bakhtin studies with an article published in 1979. Bakhtin studies in Russia experienced a steady growth from the late 1980s, a trend which only intensified in the early 1990s and probably culminated in the year, 1995. If, as is apparent, sociality does not occupy centre stage in Russian Bakhtin studies, neither does Kristeva or Todorov. Probably most striking about Kristeva's Russian reception is closely associated she is with the worst possible allies for contemporary Russian: feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Mikhail structuralism and poststructuralism, and the left.
