Boris Eikhenbaum

Boris Eikhenbaum was a Russian literary scholar and historian who played a key role in developing Formalism, a movement focused on studying the form and techniques of literature rather than its themes or author’s intentions. He believed that understanding how a work is constructed—its language, style, and structure—reveals its true meaning and artistic value. Eikhenbaum's work helped shift literary analysis toward a detailed examination of the text itself, influencing later literary theories and methods used to analyze literature objectively and systematically.