Designating a group of early 20th-cent. Russian literary critics and scholars who stressed the formal and inherent features of text rather than its content or context; of or relating to these individuals and their ideas.
noun
A member of this group.
Origin
1920s.
Definition of Russian Formalist in US English:
Russian Formalist
adjective
Designating a group of early 20th-cent. Russian literary critics and scholars who stressed the formal and inherent features of text rather than its content or context; of or relating to these individuals and their ideas.