Volume 16, 2018 year

This article investigates the interpretation of the raising of Lazarus in early Christian literature. The author presents new data taken from the writings of St. Athanasius and other untranslated theological sources by S. Cyrill of Jerusalem, Pseudo-Clement, Didymus the Blind. The research focuses on the interpretation of the motif of the raising of Lazarus in Byzantine literature of the 2d—4th centuries. The research question concerns the writings of the authors of the given period that contain the interpretation of this evangelic motif. The author comes to the conclusion that the raising of Lazarus is an important theme in the writings of early Christian theologists. In Pseudo-Clement’s writings the name of Lazarus is nothing but mentioned for making the work more plausible, while St. Athanasius deeply reflects over the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John, seeking for anti-arian arguments in it. Didymus the Blind leaves classical some typical commentaries on the resurrection of Lazarus, thus, disclosing the ties of the Biblical narration with the Letter of Paul to the Romans. St. Cyrill of Jerusalem in his Catechesis emphasizes the fact of faith of Martha and Mary, Lazarus’s sisters, who saved him.

Keywords: patristics, early Christianity, history of Church, resurrection of Lazarus, interpretation, the Gospel

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The images of animals in Sami folklore remain beyond the scope of research interest, meanwhile they are part of the pagan conception of the northern people about the surrounding world. The purpose of our study is to find out mythological representations of an ethnos that underlie the fairy-tale image of a bird and the further development of its semantics. The material for the study were the excerpts of the Sami myth about the world creation in which the sacral image of a waterfowl plays a major role, along with the collections of Sami fairy tales. The semantics of the image from its mythological up to its folkloric meaning was traced. The episodes of the Sami cosmogonic myth reveal traits of Finno-Ugric (the emergence of the world from the eggs of the bird) and praural (the demiurge is a waterfowl) views. The folkloristic image of the bird is based on mythological ideas of the ethnos about it as a demiurge, the bird is a mediator between heaven and earth, marital relations between birds and people reflect the totemic beliefs of the ancient Sami. A mythological image of the bird expands its semantics in fairy tales, where the bird becomes an assistant of people and participates in deciding on their destiny. Along with the mythological images of ducks, doves, ravens in fairy tales there are images of a goose, a swan, an eagle, a sea-gull, a dove, a falcon. All birds in folklore are related to the motif of werewolves.

Keywords: the cosmogonic myth, Sami folklore, the sacred image, totemic beleifs, shapeshifting

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The costume in the artistic world of N. M. Karamzin is an important semiotic system. It appears as a means of characterizing the hero’s social status, social role, his connection with a sacred reality, and in this way, the costume is certainly symbolic. The material world is a tool of idealization of everyday life, it has a symbolic completeness related to ritual and ceremonial aspects, its image serves as a method of visualization of history. The details of the costume are always clearly marked and have no random character. With the help of the hero's costume the national color is reconstructed, the spirit of the era is transmitted, historical reality is modeled. The peculiarity of poetics of “The Histоry of the Russian State” is conveyed through the description of the costume, which is characterized by attention to details, the change of close-up and long-distance plans while creating portraits of the characters as well as biblical allusions. The deceleration of the action by the introduction of a character’s costume puts corporeal ekphrasis in the same line of historical events. Thanks to the ethnographically accurate description of clothes, the historical interpretation is perceived by the reader as a historical reconstruction.

Keywords: N. M. Karamzin, clothes, ekphrasis, historical reconstruction, poetics, artistic image

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The article is devoted to the study of the contradictory attitude to Gogol’s creative heritage in the posterior Russian literature. The author analyzes the conflict between the content of the writer’s works and the pathos of his closest “successors”, representatives of the so-called “natural school”, which united the writers of the Western direction headed by V. G. Belinsky and N. A. Nekrasov. The role of P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, I. S. Turgenev, N. G. Chernyshevsky, etc. in the campaign against Gogol launched in 1847 by Belinsky regarding the publication of the “Selected passages from the correspondence with friends” is stressed. The special attitude to Gogol's traditions by F. M. Dostoevsky is considered in detail. The history of Turgenev’s article about the death of Gogol in 1852 is analyzed. The origins of the famous satirical attack of Turgenev’s character Bazarov regarding Gogol's “Fathers and sons” are clarified. The objective view of Gogol’s estimations of Turgenev’s works is presented. For the first time the history of the origin and development of “literary centrism” of the national culture of 19th—20th centuries.

Keywords: N. V. Gogol, creativity, interpretation, traditions, profetism, literary centrism, sermon, “Selected passages from the correspondence with friends”, Westernism, Slavophilism, polemics, parody

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The subject of the study is the motif of unauthorized “escape from Paradise”, as the one opposing to the motif of “exile from Paradise”, common in Western literature. Considering two asynchronical samples — of the manifestations of this motif (in A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Forest” and in the fairy-tale by K. N. Batyushkov “A Wanderer and a Stay-at-home”), the author comes to the observation that it appeared as a romantic opposition to sentimental separation between “sustainable” and “moving” life: the poetry of sentimentalism favored the value of the “sustainable” position, whereas the supporters of romanticism saw the “movement” as the key sign, which later took paradoxical forms, giving new opportunities for developing national psychology of the Russian person and opposing the ideology of former Russian literature. This paradox was adopted by A. S. Pushkin and conceptualized by F. M. Dostoevsky in the “Pushkin Speech”. Further development of this motif led to the appearance of the ideal of a “restless” wanderer, consistently embodied in comedies by A. N. Ostrovsky.

Keywords: Arkady Schastlivcev, A. N. Ostrovsky, K. N. Batyushkov, A. S. Pushkin, F. M. Dostoevsky, homeostatic society, stability, destruction, craving for the unknown, escape from Paradise

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In chapters V and VI of the second volume of “The Brothers Karamazov” by F. M. Dostoevsky a dispute about church court starts. The motifs of “social Christianity” not mentioned by researchers earlier become apparent here. A certain correlation of the way of thinking of the characters, sometimes very accurate, with exact viewpoints of some Russian thinkers upon certain issues or even with certain movements of social thought take place in this dispute. This study shows that Ivan Karamazov presents the theocratic utopia about future transformation of the State into “the Universal Church” asserted by Vladimir Solovyov (although he does not seem to believe much in it). The other disputer, father Paisius, an adherent of Slavophilism, at the same time favour Solovyov’s utopia deriving from Slavophilic ideas. In his novel Dostoevsky contraposes this utopia in the form of both theoretic and rational idea of Ivan Karamazov, to the earthly, humanistic and reachable ideal of “the Universal Church”. According the monk Zosima, the grounds of this ideal exist in Russian society that proves that the ideal is likely to come true in future.

Keywords: Social Christianity, dialogical, conflict, Dostoevsky, Vladimir Solovyov, “The Brothers Karamazov”, theocratic, the ideal, literature, philosophy

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This article considers the anthroponyms and the ways of naming characters in Tolstoy’s povest’ “Hadji Murad” and proved that onyms, patronymics and poetonyms fulfil an anticipative or foreshadowing function. Describing simple life of people in “Hadji Murad”, Tolstoy resorts to the generic naming of people by their age, family status and description of clothing. Mentioning the ambitious and faceless high-ranking people the author uses their titles or a military rank that often replace their surnames. Sometimes Tolstoy refers to the multidimensional representation of the characters and combines the indication of their social status, brief biographical information and portrait description. Showing his disfavour to Nikolas I, Tolstoy does not use the title “tsar” while describing him but refers to him by his name Nikolas or his name and patronymic when the latter becomes an object of worship or gives an order to kill people. In “Hadji Murad” Pyotr Mikhailovich Avdeev is a righteous man by Tolstoy. His three-part poetonym bears a powerful moral and religious implication. Tolstoy modifies some of the onyms of certain historical figures mentioned in the story in order to implicitly justify the deeds of these characters. The polemically emphasized discrepancy of the historical person’s onym with that one given to him by the author reflects the extinction of moral and heroic essence in this person. The author does not use the word “enemy”, he deprives the word “antagonist” of its negative connotation and does not mention the nationality of the belligerents; Tolstoy applies the only epic criterion of estimation to all characters and stands for the cessation of the slaughter and for mutual understanding.

Keywords: anthroponym, onym, patronymic, poetonym, name semantics, prototype, generic characters, prospective function

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The article considers one of the cross-cutting motifs in the poetics of Boris Pasternak — the motif of demonic possession, which is realized mainly through natural images (snowstorm, blizzard, bad weather). The natural world becomes a mirror image of the human world, and this artistic method is in the mainstream of Russian classical literature. However, Pasternak recycles the classic motif, deprives it of an unambiguous negative connotation and gives new meanings to it. The Poet’s knowledge of the Ancient philosophy and New Testament traditions, which left a deep imprint in his personal philosophical beliefs embodied then in his poetry and prose, contributes to it. The combination of these two traditions is most clearly manifested in the motif of demonic possession, which, on the one hand, relegates to evangelical plots about the expulsion of demons, and on the other hand to the Socratic demon, the “divine voice” that metaphorically embodies the thinking part of the soul. It is the ancient tradition that removes unambiguously negative connotation from rampage: bordering on demonic possession and disease, rampage through ecstatic states opens the Dionysian sources of Pasternak’s works.

Keywords: Boris Pasternak, poetry, motif, demonic possession, frenzy, ancient tradition, Christian tradition

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The article explores the evolution of one of the central themes of A. Platonov’s work — the recovery of the dead. It has evangelical origins and is inextricably linked with the problems of life, death, immortality, salvation. The complex attribution of actualized artistic nominations and their equivalents to different sources can be traced in its development. In the revolutionary eschatology of the young Platonov (1910—1920), the reinterpretation of the New Testament view of the opposition of life-death, remythologization and utopian transcription of the evangelical images and plots is traced. In the novel “Chevengur”, in the works of the 1930s—1940s the restoration of meanings and symbols of the New Testament takes place. The Christian code plays an important role in the creative work of Platonov. In the development of the theme of the recovery of the deceased, the writer’s evolution appears as the return to the sources of folk spirituality and faith.

Keywords: Andrei Platonov, recovery of the dead, life, death, salvation, myth, utopia, Evangelical text, Christian code

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The artistic system of the novel “Kys” by T. Tolstaya is defined by a specifically organized narrative strategy targeted at a parable. The article deals with the novel “Kys” from the viewpoint of functioning of parable elements at different artistic levels, primarily, of the circumlocutions that hide philosophical, existential essence behind a deliberately common narration. The parabolic strategy in the narrative of the novel creates an effect of a multifaceted content, tells the reader that the meaning of the work is not limited to the external plot. The parabolic strategy of the text is manifested in the composition of the novel, the chapter titles of which bear the names of the letters of the Old Cyrillic alphabet. This is one of the ways to create a metaphorical subtext of the narration. The message contained in T. Tolstoy’s alphabet is an encrypted form of the author’s discourse. The reading of the novel “Kys” taking into consideration the parable as the narrative strategy allows us to disclose a deeper meaning of its contents conveyed by the author to the reader.

Keywords: T. Tolstaya, “Kys”, parabolic strategy, semantics, composition

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