Volume 17, 2019 year

The article analyses the narrative structure of the first part of the “Kazan Chronicle” (chapters 1—57), an eminent monument of the Old Russian literature of the middle of the 16th century. The unique principle of the narration in the text of the writing is brought to light, i.e. the dependence of three story lines — “war”, “peace”, the “Divine Providence” — on three main ideas presented in the “Kazan Chronicle”: the idea of the historical reasonableness of the incorporation of the Tsardom of Kazan into Russia, of the justification of Ivan the Terrible of the massacre between the Russians and the Kazanians during the siege of Kazan, and of the Russian Prince’s exploit supported by the God’s will, of the conquest of Kazan in 1552. Based on the example of the number of chapters of the first part of the “Kazan Chronicle”, it is shown how the narrative principle chosen by the author — the story about the betrayal by the Kazanians, the vengeance for the insult caused to the Russain governers — manifests itself in the precise artistic material and how it transforms in the second part of the “Kazan Chronicle” telling about the siege and conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible in 1552.

Keywords: the Old Russian literature, “Kazan Chronicle”, storyline, narratology, historical fiction

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Largely overlooked by scholars the religious context of Ryleev’s writing became the focus of our research. The narrative poem “Vladimir the Saint” originally called duma was not published during the poet’s lifetime. Being studied in an axiological aspect the central conflict of the poem is interpreted from a completely different angle. An analysis of the artistic structure covers a number of important points, that distinguish the duma’s plot from the historical source, and prioritizes the opposition between Christianity and paganism that brings forward the antithesis of true and false values. The study clearly shows that the motif of conscience occupying the central place in the plot directly associates the ideological system to Christian anthropology. So, the transformation of a traditional impulse for the protagonist’s separation from the world being usual for Romanticism elevates the idea of salvation as central and plot-generating in the poem. The final leaves the impression of incompleteness, thus, the title of the work anticipates future events and the poem depicts only the initial situation whereof the prince’s path to holiness begins.

Keywords: Ryleev, duma, prince Vladimir, plot, motifs, Christianity, paganism

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The article studies a historical course of the poetics of paradox (paràdoxos, Greek — strange, unexpected), i. e. such an opinion, speculation or sentence that contradicts not only a conventional image but a common sense too. V. N. Zakharov has educed the limits and forms of the paradox manifestation in the publicistic texts of F. M. Dostoevsky. The author of the article shows that Dostoevsky, as a paradoxographer, had an undeniable precursor O. I. Senkovsky, the author of “The Pages of Baron Brambeus” (1856—1858). Considering a general idea of paradox as an ultra usual, ultra probable and at the same time odd, amazing, excellent phenomenon Baron Brambeus apparently approaches the poetics of “A Writer’s Diary”.

Keywords: poetics of paradox, narration, literary mask, style, Baron Brambeus, F. M. Dostoevsky

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The article is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of the problems of studying the poetic “The Missive of Belinsky to Dostoevsky” (“A knight of a sad character…”), that is a burlesque text hardly survived to our days in the lists of different credibility and without a definite authorship. The former research approaches to the problems of poem’s sources, authorship and dating are generalized and analyzed in a critical way in the article. A hypothesis, put forward before by V. N. Zakharov, about the participation in the creation of this joint writing of Ivan Panaev along with Turgenev and Nekrasov, is confirmed. Based on the analysis of the architectonics of “The Missive…” a reasoned hypothesis about two editions of the text — an early, brief one and a final, detailed one, is presented. The article makes an attempt of reconstruction of the brief edition that complies better with a genre type of “The Missive…”. In the context of the given hypothesis about the history of the text of the writing the approaches to its dating were specified. The article makes comments on some content elements of the text providing additional information for solving the given problems.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Belinsky, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Panaev, almanac “Leviathan”, parody, history of the text, authorship and dating problems, architectonics, semantic and rhythmic failures

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In his letter from Florence dated on 15th (27) May, 1869, F. M. Dostoevsky explains to Apollon Maikov a whole series of his ideas about both poetics and ideology. Some parts of the letter are devoted to the poetry and poetic genres, the fundamental pivotal points in Russian history and the problems of its explanation, atheism and Christianity which became a new centre of the writer’s thoughts at that time. The article focuses on the concept of poetry that appears in the letter and, particularly, on the interpretation by Dostoevsky of the narrative and didactic character of the genre of “poem”. Another important aspect of the analysis related to the previous one, concerns the study of a new narrative technique elaborated by Dostoevsky and consisting in a “quasi-artistical” description of the poetical writings. Dostoevsky never became a poet, but he could create poetical works in the same manner as his character Ivan Karamazov did adapting the subject of the “poem” about the Great Inquisitor. The originality of this approach is explained by the way of an artistic elaboration of the ideas and concepts inherent to Dostoevsky. In his letter to Maikov, as well as in Ivan’s narration of the “poem” about the Great Inquisitor to Alyosha, there are seen the techniques of an extremely reduced, allusive manner of a creative process elaborated by Dostoevsky in his preparatory notebooks.

Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky, A. N. Maikov, narratology, epistolary genre, The Great Inquisitor, poetic genres

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The motif of the “fateful inheritance” in the novel “The Idiot” by F. M. Dostoevsky is discussed in the article from three viewpoints: first, its facts related to the Moscow world of the Kumanin family, many members of which became prototypes of the characters of the novel are commented; second, the “Kumanin’s trace” is evidentiated in its plot. The real commentary is accompanied with the analysis of a mythopoetic model of the inheritance motif implementation. Its attributes are the “bundle” in the hands of Knyaz Myshkin (Knyaz is a historical Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times of history and different ancient Slavic lands) and the “case” (“letter”), which are “mysteriously” interlinked. A chain connection between these details in the novel reflects a consistent plot development of the motif of the fatal inheritance, elaborated in accordance with a cumulative logic of the solution to a folkloric riddle. Another characteristic feature of its mythopoetics is a symbolic parallelism of destinies and characters of Rogozhin and Myshkin. Third, the article reveals the connection between the inheritance motif in Dostoevsky’s text and the literary tradition, primarily with the works of L. Tolstoy and Balzac. Thus, the parodic reactualization of an early essay “Unhappy” written by the French writer in the libel of Keller and Lebedev marks Dostoevsky’s transition to an “eminent realism”, that is confirmed by the general dynamics of the work upon the “Idiot”, that is finally reduced to the synthesis of personal experience with literary tradition and cultural memory. As a result, the article comes to a conclusion that during the process of an artistic implementation of the fateful inheritance motif in the novel “Idiot” there took place a contamination of the autobiographical narrative with the corresponding folkloric-mythological and literary models.

Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky, “The Idiot”, Kumanin, the fateful inheritance motif, real, mythopoetic, historic and literary commentary

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The manuscript of Ippolit Terentyev “My Indispensable Explication”, referred to as an “article” or a “notebook” in Dostoevsky’s novel, is traditionally seen as a confession in literary studies. Meanwhile, the genre and narrative structure of Ippolit’s manuscript is not homogeneous, but multilayer. The conjugacy of various discursive strategies of justifications of the “last conviction” of the ideological self-destroyer in the text, from the viewpoint of the logic of the conscious (thesis) and subconscious and “true live” (antithesis), enlarges genre limits of the confessional word. The idea of the human right to commit suicide appears in the manuscript in the form of the number of conclusions in the narration that rather resembles a philosophical and publicistic discourse, the convincing and fervent emotional manner of which refers us to the genre of a preaching text. The logic of the subconscious of a dying young man appeals to the images of Apocalypses and non-existence penetrating into the night fantasy narration. The fear of death and the loss of faith are embodied in a discursive strategy of ecphrasis. The logic of the “true life” penetrating into the narration manifests itself in the scenes of reality, that appear in the text as the cut-in novelettes containing narrative strategies of a physiological essay, psychological sketch and moralizing story. The conducted analysis specifies the ideas about genre and narrative structure of the “article” of Ippolit, the largest and most important one for comprehension of the whole novel of a cut-in construction.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, inserted genres, confession, discourse, narrative strategies, novelette, ecphrasis

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The article is devoted to theoretical and practical issues that emerge while preparing the historical (“real”) commentary on Dostoevsky’s writings. The work studies traditional and modern approaches to commenting of literary texts, provides variants of the classification of linguistic commentaries of different types, and identifies types that are relevant to the study of Dostoevsky’s works. In the article, as exemplified in Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” (its handwritten and printed texts), the question of the tasks, subject, content and limits of a historical (“real”) commentary on literary texts is examined. The problem of the word interpretation is analyzed taking into account the semantic context. The article analyzes the issues of commenting the names of real historical persons and characters, allusions to historical ideas, biblical quotes, literary intertexts, including auto-reminiscences. As a result of the accomplished analysis, the historical (“real”) commentary on Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” was refined, clarified and supplemented.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Russian literature, problems of commenting on a literary text

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The structure of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” is hierarchical and Christ-centered. The author’s ideas of the faith need, adherence to evangelical commandments, ability to self-sacrifice as a path to human revival are at the heart of the plot, composition and system of images of the novel. The motif of humility is implemented in the actions and discourses of Prince Myshkin. The teaching speech of the hero, containing confession and sermon, conveys the author’s ideas of renunciation of the death penalty, unity of natural, active and blessing faith as the essence of a religious feeling, the need of the Russian society to address to Orthodoxy as a uniting spiritual bond. Emphasizing that the author shares these ideas, the writer includes autobiographical allusions in the hero’s speech. The speeches of Ippolit Terentyev and Lebedev the author’s thoughts about Christocentrism as a society-binding idea, about the need for mutual forgiveness and grace are manifested. The departure of heroes from evangelical commandments (forbidding passion, pride, vanity, jealousy, envy, lies, avarice) causes negative author’s modality, which is expressed in irony, sarcasm, resentment, ridicule.

Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky, author, reader, hero, hierarchy, the Gospel, religious discourse, speech genres, confession, sermon

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The article implements a socio-cultural approach to the study of a work of art. The text containing information for reconstruction by the reader of social and cultural space, contemporary to the writer, is emphasized in the work of fiction. The content of the story "Figure" by N. S. Leskov is determined by the socio-cultural conflict that develops during Easter days, which contradicts the atmosphere of joy, harmony and triumph of faith typical of Easter. This situation allows the writer to show the originality of socio-cultural relations in society. Easter, like other religious holidays, expresses Christian cultural universals, archetypes and values that determine (though not limit) the content of the “cultural core” of society. One of the universals is the idea of forgiveness, manifested in the text in the motif of forgiveness. However, this cultural dominant is contrary to the idea of “officer's honor” and “noble pride”, which is centric for the army and noble subcultures, and is responsible for the behavior of their representatives. Leskov shows that as a result of the conflict, the main character, carrying out into practice the idea of forgiveness day-to-day, becomes a maverick, creating his own social niche, which also becomes a refuge for an outcast Christy and her illegitimate daughter. The marginal group formed by the characters becomes the guardian of the basic Christian values ("cultural core"), designed to unite Russian society. An image of the Figure is an image of a righteous man. All Leskov’s men of God are marginalized in the context of their social status. The analysis of the socio-cultural text in the story "the Figure" makes it possible to understand the deep reasons for the contradictory attitude of society (social classes and groups) to the phenomenon of righteousness, to the righteous as people who implement the Christian commandments in worldly life and aspire to God. The use of a socio-cultural approach to the analysis of a literary text allows us to conclude about a large scale of the author's picture of the world: even in the works, the plot of which is based on an anecdote or a curious case from the life of the character, the writer creates "conditions" for their understanding in the socio-cultural context.

Keywords: N. S. Leskov, socio-cultural text, socio-cultural space, socio-cultural context, artistic reality, motif of forgiveness, the image of the righteous

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The article studies the initial stages (1900s—1920s) of the formation of one of the basic categories of artistic thinking of Alexei Remizov, the “theory of a Core Mode of the Russian literary style” (“teoriya russkogo lada”) thought up by him. Since the late 1900s the writer began to incorporate into his author language the antique linguistic layers. In the 1910s Remizov put into practice an aesthetic principle that he discovered: the writer is a “retransmitter” of the voices of the people kept in folklore, in ancient Russian literature and ego documents. During the Second Russian revolution in his creative practice and theoretical articles Remizov again raised the question of the language of modern verbal art. The basis of the style was to be the author’s language as a synthesis of literary and oral speech. At the same time, Remizov began to build a historical typology of the development of a literary line related to it. As a result of familiarization with the literary works of D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky and V. Vinogradov, Remizov identified a key figure for the literary line he was building, that connected anonymous folk art with new literature. Such a figure became Archpriest Avvakum. Remizov revealed his theoretical postulates in the articles published in the journal “Versty”.

Keywords: Alexei Remizov, “teoriya russkogo lada”, style, prose of the twentieth century

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The article studies personal and creative relations as well as mutual opinions of A. M. Remizov (1877—1957) and V. V. Khlebnikov (1885—1922), mainly by the elder writer. Remizov became the first writer-symbolist Khlebnikov got acquainted with in 1908 after his arrival in Saint Petersburg. In the context of personal relations the article presents and interprets a number of facts testifying about close ties established between the writers in the period from autumn 1908 to January 1910, when Khlebnikov considered Remizov his elder friend and teacher. Klebnikov’s attitude became especially clear during the so called “Remizov’s plagiarism case”, when the poet was ready to challenge to a duel the insulter of his friend. But the thing that really brought them together was their interest for East Slavic mythology and archaic layers of the Russian language. The involvement of Khlebnikov in the movement of futurists and his aggressive position towards the symbolists let to the altercation with Remizov that, however, did not influence their common creative focus on the search for a “Russian style”. During the years of emigration Remizov’s interest for the personality and work of Khlebnikov manifested in the memoirs of the writer, was to a great extent maintained by philologists and men of letters of the Russian expatriate community, among them D. P. Svyatolpolk-Mirsky and particularly, V. F. Markov who was working on the history of the Russian literary avant-garde. The article comes to some preliminary conclusions about a common edifying role of Remizov and Khlebnikov in the literary process (“writers for writers”) and the belonging of both of them to a “patriotic movement” in the literature of Russian modernism of the first third of the 20^th century.

Keywords: A. M. Remizov, V. V. Khlebnikov, symbolism, futurism, the avant-garde art, “Russian style”, neo-slavophilism, literary impacts, East-Slavic mythology and folklore, “writer for writers”

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