Volume 19, 2021 year

The article presents an overview of the existing translations of Aristotle's “Poetics”, characterizes the features of each of them. In the preface to his translation of Aristotle's “Poetics”, V. Zakharov characterized the work of the Greek philosopher as a “dark text.” Each translation of this treatise, which forms the basis of European and world literary theory, is also its interpretation, an attempt to interpret the “dark places.” The first Russian translation of “Poetics” was made by B. Ordynsky and published in 1854, however, the Russian reader was familiar with the contents of the treatise through translations into European languages and its expositions in Russian. For instance, in the “Dictionary of Ancient and New Poetry” Ostolopov sets out the Aristotelian theory of drama and certain other aspects of “Poetics” very close to the original text. Ordynsky translated the first 18 chapters of “Poetics”, focusing on the theory of tragedy. The translator presented his interpretation of Aristotle’s concept in an extensive preface, commentaries and a lengthy “Statement.” This translation set off a critical analysis by Chernyshevsky, and influenced his dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality”, in which the author polemicizes with the aesthetics of German romanticism. In 1885 V. Zakharov published the first complete Russian translation of “Poetics”, in which he offered his own interpretation of Aristotle's teaching on language and epic. The author of this translation returns to the terminology of romantic aesthetics, therefore the translation itself is outside the main line of perception of the teachings of Aristotle by domestic literary theory, which is clearly manifested in the translations of V. G. Appelrot (1893), N. N. Novosadsky (1927) and M. L. Gasparov (1978). The subject of discussion in these translations was the interpretation of the notions of μῦϑος and παθος, the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, the source of suffering and the tragic, the possibility of modernizing terminology. An important milestone in the perception and assimilation of Aristotle's treatise by Russian literary criticism was its translation by A. F. Losev, which was not published, but was used by the author in his theoretical works and in criticizing other interpretations of “Poetics”. M. M. Pozdnev penned one of the last translations of “Poetics” (2008). The translator does not seek to preserve the peculiarities of the original style and interprets “Poetics” within the framework and terms of modern literary theory, focusing on its English translations. The main subject of the translator's reflection is Aristotle's understanding of the essence and phenomenon of poetic art. Translations of the Greek philosopher's treatise reflect the history of the formation and development of the domestic theory of literature, its main topics and terminological apparatus.

Keywords: Aristotle, Poetics, translation, interpretation, terminology of literary criticism, imitation, purification, tragedy, epic, myth, twists and turns, recognition, pathos, passion

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The article analyzes the battle of Vasily Buslaev with the elder, presented in the epic “Vasily Buslaev and the Novgorodians,” which has already been discussed in domestic folklore studies. Contrary to the opinion of preceding researchers, who claimed that the elder personified Novgorod or the Christian church, while the battle reflected the struggle of the old system with the new, the author presents his vision of both the image of the elder and the essence of his battle with Vasily Buslaev. They are analyzed in the context of the mythology and practice of the fist-fighting organizations associated, in turn, with youth initiation rites. An analysis of the material, verbal and action codes showed that the elder appears in the epic as a “tainted” otherworldly character associated with the waters of the Volkhov and witchcraft. The attributes of the elder and the methods of his slaying also indicate the possibility of his correlation with the ancestor and the image of Perun. The methods of Vasily’s execution of the elder are clearly analogous to the ancient rituals of sending the ancestors’ souls off to the next world, widespread among the Eastern Slavs. They were associated with the idea of the ancestors’ souls coming to earth at certain points in the calendar year, and the need to send them back to the other world, by launching them on the water, among other ways. In full accordance with the structure and meaning of youth initiations, the battle and the death of the elder may be interpreted as a transfer of magical abilities, strength and a new share to Vasily, who was being initiated. This scheme is fully consistent with the mythology of ancient youth initiations, in which male ancestors (spirits) took an obligatory part.

Keywords: epic, Vasily Buslaev, Novgorodians, mythology and ritual practices of martial organizations, dedicatory rites, fistfight, battle

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This article discusses the status of thievery in the East Slavic tradition. The prime objective of the publication was to determine the place of the thief in the system of characters with supernatural abilities who also belong to the “knower” category. This category usually includes masters, magic experts, and semi-demonic beings. The work is based on the materials of the peasant culture of the mid-19th — early 20th centuries. A systematic description of the image of the thief as a character with supernatural abilities comprised the first stage of research. The research study reveals the reasons for the inclination to theft and typical characteristics and motifs that confirm the demonological status of the thief. The set of supernatural qualities placed this status higher than that of magic experts, but lower than that of semi-demonic beings. Thus, on the conventional scale ‘man - semi-demonic creature’ thieves are above sorcerers and witches. The characters acquired common motifs and characteristics; a lexicological rapprochement between them is revealed in the research. Additionally, the ideas of the thieves’ special social status, which associates them with sorcerers and witches, in the rural community were revealed.

Keywords: East Slavic mythology, folk demonology, classification, typology, sorcerer, thief, robber

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The established, yet unconfirmed, viewpoint states that the crown of sonnets originated in the 13th century, although the first known instances of this genre form belong to the 16th century. These works differ from the modern (canonical) crown by the unregulated number of texts and the absence of the master sonnet. The thematic and stylistic variety of the Baroque crowns suggests that certain sonnet crown sequences did exist before the 16th century, albeit they are still undiscovered. In the absence of relevant texts, the study of the formal poetic preconditions required for the emergence of the crown of sonnets could clarify the time of the appearance of this supertextual form. Two factors determine the structure of the crown: the cohesion of adjacent texts and the ring-like organization of the supertextual unit. The first refers to the repetition of the last verse of the preceding text at the beginning of the following one. This poetic technique originates from the Provençal troubadours, who created a specific form of chained stanzas (coblas capfinidas); the Galician-Portuguese poets discovered another form of strophic concatenation (leixaprén). The second factor is the repetition of the first verse of the initial text at the end of the last one. Despite the verbatim coincidence, these verses are not semantically equal to each other, since the last verse, enriched by the previous context, acquires new semantic characteristics. One of the first poetic forms that combines the beginning and end of the text was the rondel, created in the 15th century. The examination of medieval poetic genres from the point of view of their crown-forming potential led to the conclusion that only the sonnet form meets the requirements for a poetic crown. The studied material suggests that, despite the common opinion, the non-canonical crown of sonnets could not appear in the 13th century, as the entire complex of formal poetic conditions for the emergence of this genre form developed at the end of the 15th century.

Keywords: crown of sonnets, prehistory, chained stanzas, coblas capfinidas, leixaprén, ring composition

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The article presents the analysis of the stoyanie na kostyakh (standing on bones) topos, which is present in battle narratives of the 13th—17th centuries. In battle chronicles this topos is most often expressed by the verbal formula stal na kostyakh (meaning “he has won”), referring either to a prince or to soldiers in general. Instead of the formula stali na kostyakh (they have won), it is sometimes reported how many days the victorious soldiers stoyali na kostyakh, that is, how many days they stayed at the site after the battle. The most interesting use of the topos is revealed in the The Tale of the Battle with Mamai. In this text the fixed expression stal na kostyakh refers to Prince Vladimir Andreevich, whom the author depicts as the main hero of the battle, despite tradition. At the same time, the author provides a detailed account of the stoyanie na kostyakh ritual performed by the victorious soldiers led by Dmitry Ivanovich and reports that “the great prince has been standing on the bones for eight days behind the Don.” Both ancient Russian authors and modern researchers understand the meaning of this ritual reflected in the works of poets and artists in different ways.

Keywords: military narrative, monuments of the Kulikovo cycle, topos, military formula “stal na kostyakh”, military ritual “stoyanie na kostyakh”

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The article examines the functioning of the temptation motif in the ancient Russian apocrypha Zosima’s Journey to the Rahmans. The methods of implementing this motif in the text are analyzed; its significance in the plot of the work and in the formation of the image of the earthly paradise, with which the country of the blessed is associated in this literary work, is established. The biblical source of the motif is the Old Testament story of the fall of Adam and Eve and the test of the strength of faith, embodied in the temptation of Jesus Christ by the devil in the desert. The heterogenous structure of Zosima’s Journey to the Rahmans, where independent plots are integrated (the legendary story of the Rekhabites and the description of the land of the blessed), determined the varied realizations of the motif temptation in the text. An analysis revealed that the prologue of the literary work already contains an allusion to the Gospel temptation plot (a report of the forty-day prayer of the hermit to God). In the story of the Rechabites’ opposition to the king of Jerusalem and the story of the confrontation between Zosima and the devil, the motif of temptation is a plot-forming one. The story of the hermit’s temptation is formed by two storylines: Zosima's opposition to the devil and the fall of the first people, told by the tempter to intimidate the hermit. The Old Testament sin of Adam was developed in the storyline of Zosima and the Rechabite elder, who denounced the hermit as a «preacher» who involuntarily tried to persuade him to lie. The motif of temptation in Zosima’s Journey to the Rahmans may have been expressed explicitly, or merely be discernible, as in the story about the observance of Great Lent by the blessed or through the symbolic connotation of the numbers used in the literary work. The article also demonstrates that changes in the literary history of the apocrypha were reflected in the implementation of the temptation motif in its text.

Keywords: motif, apocryphal, Zosima, Journey, earthly paradise, Rechabites, blessed, temptation, edition, text structure

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The article examines a landmark text of Old Russian literature entitled Vypis’. The author of Vypis’ declares it an extract from a genuine message that was sent to Moscow by the monks of Mount Athos. In reality, the text is in no way an extract, and the message from which it is supposedly taken has never existed. Vypis’ is a convoluted story about the decision of the Grand Duke Vasiliy the Third to divorce his first wife and take a new one. Several bold representatives among the Russian clergy, Eastern patriarchs and Athonite monks — all of them considered the prince’s intention to be a violation of church canons. Vypis’ is filled with factual errors; thus, it is devoid of value as a historical document, but is of interest as a literary phenomenon. The literary sources of Vypis’, its influence on other literary pieces, its unusual language with a large number of agrammatisms and strange barbarisms are analyzed in the article. The text is compared with the first style imitation experiments which were conducted in course of discussions on the Russian-Turkish relations. By the complex of its features, Vypis’ can be dated the last decades of the 16th century. It can be defined as a failed attempt to create a literary style imitation. The author believes Vypis’ was composed in Chudov Monastery or by one of Orthodox church defenders in Lithuania.

Keywords: second marriage, canons, message, Mount Athos, debate on faith, literary style imitation

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The article analyzes an epitaph dedicated to Dimitry of Rostov. It was written in Ukraine after the death of the metropolitan in 1709, but before his official canonization in 1757. Unlike the two other well-known epitaphs dedicated to Saint Dimitry (the funeral oration by Stephen Yavorsky and the inscription by Michail Lomonosov engraved on the silver icon case of his tomb complex), this text, which belongs to the syllabic epitaph genre, was an inscription under Dimitry’s lifetime portrait that was kept in the Novgorod-Seversky monastery. This epitaph, like the first two texts, can be clearly characterized as a baroque text, however, it differs significantly from them in content and style. It reflects other artistic phenomena of baroque poetics and has the features of synthesis, a combination of an iconographic image and signature, illustrations and text, words and images. The portrait-icon with verses was delivered to Rostov to metropolitan Arseny (Matseevich) through Fyodor Dubyansky, the confessor of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. For a long time, it was preserved at the tomb of St. Dimitry in the interior of the Trinity (Conception) monastery. This epitaph reflects the Ukrainian tradition, in which portraits with epitaphs were hung at the graves of bishops and churchwardens. Who was the author of this epitaph to Dimitry of Rostov? It was most certainly a representative of the Ukrainian elite who knew Dimitry’s biography very well. Perhaps it was Ioann (Maksimovich), the future metropolitan of Tobolsk. The location of the original icon with the inscription is unknown, but a copy has survived in the museum of the KievPechersk monastery. However, this epitaph continued to exist in the written tradition. Several copies of it are known, and its text was reproduced and perceived separately from the iconographic model as a hagiographic text. It served, in turn, as a source of other such texts dedicated to Dimitry of Rostov and created after his canonization. The subsequent fate of this epitaph is also associated with the phenomena of the new cultural epoch, in which different types of art did not merely complement each other, but also led to the expansion of artistic expression, to the creation, interaction and interchangeability of new artistic forms, evolution of genre, which are undoubtedly important for the studying the genre poetics of the 18th century.

Keywords: epitaph, iconography, hagiography, problems of attribution, source study, canonization, Dimitry of Rostov, Ioann Maksimovich

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The article is dedicated to the notion of 'kuteynik', which spread around post-reform Russia. Explanatory, historical, dialect and other dictionaries, fiction literature, publicistic works and ego-documents are used as sources. Several concurrent processes associated with the evolution of this term in the 16th — 20th centuries are analyzed: the switch from neutral semantics to pejorative and the occasional return to neutral; its transition from church lexicon to vulgar, then to literary and at last to archaic language; the expansion of its meaning — from a certain churchman who cooked 'kutia' to all the lower-tier clerics and then to all clergy and the people with clerical roots. The history of this notion is analyzed in detail for the first time, not only in linguistic terms, but also in connection with social processes. The period of expansion of the term 'kuteynik' as pejorative (18th — early 20th centuries) was the time of clergy’s establishment as a class with hereditary traditions and isolated higher stratum (priests) and lower stratum (deacons and lower clerics) within it. Nobles, peasants and clerics used the notion of 'kuteynik' in different meanings. For the first two groups it was a pejorative term (for different reasons) and a marker of exclusion, while clerics could use it both as pejorative and as a neutral word. The author assumes that hereditary mechanisms created a demand for pejoratives that shifted the focus from the spiritual, pastoral clerical service to specific foods, It concentrated on everyday life, which had its specifics in the homogeneous social environment and was is contrast with the traditions of other strata.

Keywords: Orthodox clergy, clerical estate, lower clerics, priests, 'kuteynik', pejoratives, collective consciousness

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The unity of the problematics and the author’s principles of composition of the collection of N. V. Gogol “Arabesques” (1835) are investigated. The unobvious unity and integrity of the writer’s poetic encyclopedia — “Arabesque” — become apparent through the coverage of the cross-cutting themes and motives of the cycle, the numerous interconnections and overlaps between the articles, essays and stories included in the collection. It is established that the organizing beginning of the cycle is the writer’s reflections of a religious and political nature. From the point of view of this main component, all eighteen works of the collection are analyzed in detail. For the first time, the influence of spiritual literature — the lives of saints, patristic works, the significance of the articles of “Philokalia” — a well-known collection of works on the prayer-contemplative experience of monastic life — is highlighted in the early works of Gogol. The spiritual aspect of the writer’s reflections on history, arts, folk art, world literature, poetry of A. S. Pushkin is noted. Gogol’s polemic with the positions of one of the founders of German romanticism, V. G. Wackenroder, is touched upon. The problems posed in the collection of the opposition of old age and youth, “sensual” life and the poetry of spirituality are analyzed, the image of the “fragmentation” of life as a distinctive feature of modernity is traced. The organic correlation of “Arabesques” with the previous and subsequent works of the writer is revealed — with the youthful poem “Ganz Kuchelgarten,” with the cycle “Mirgorod,” with “Dead Souls,” “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy,” “Selected passages from correspondence with friends” and etc. The author emphasizes the consistency of the writer’s creative path and the integral spiritual and moral character of his legacy.

Keywords: N. V. Gogol, biography, creativity, cycle, genre, composition, author’s concept, interpretation, art, V. G. Wakenroder, historicism, patristic heritage

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The article presents an intermedial analysis of V. F. Odoevsky’s novel Russian Nights. The analysis aims to identify the methods of including visual and audial media in the verbal printed text medium. A deliberately created experimental work served as material for the research. V. F. Odoevsky’s philosophical universalism extended to his aesthetic views, as evidenced by his articles and treatises. He believed in the emergence of a new art, which would be a synthesis of all arts, and tried to bring it to life on his own. In terms used by Western intermediality theorists, the novel Russian Nights did not combine different kinds of art, but adapted visual and audial channels of information transmission to create vivid mental images and a sense of acoustic presence. Odoyevsky rendered visual images through ekphrasis, i.e. verbal representation of visual representation, and through the use of literary pictorialism, in which the very reality of the artistic world presented itself to the reader in the form of a painting. The transmission of audial information occurs on three levels. Firstly, it is the level of verbal description — when the author wanted to present the readers with reflections about music, rather than music itself. Secondly, it is the level of references to real musical works — the partial reproduction mechanism switched on, and the reader could get an insight into the acoustic component from the name of a composition alone. Thirdly, it is the level of direct integration of an alien semiotic system — musical notation, when the author needed to represent a small fragment of a musical work as accurately as possible. Thus, Odoevsky tried to realize the romantic idea of an integrated art and create an intermedial novel.

Keywords: theory of intermediality, intermedial analysis, V. F. Odoevsky, “Russian Nights”, ekphrasis, literary pictorialism, adaptation, verbalization, partial reproduction, semiotic codes, syncretism

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The Russian literature was relatively late in heeding attention to the social type of the doctor. Nameless medical doctors gradually appear in the novels of the first half of the 19th century, typically as episodic persons without characters. They are educated and intelligent people, thus pleasant to communicate with, and if necessary, medical help can be obtained from them. One of those who endowed their doctor heroes with names and human characters was A. I. Herzen. His works about Dr. Krupov fostered the subject of medicine in Russian and European literature. They are the legacy of Goethe’s Faust and Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time. Like Faust, Dr. Krupov is a philosopher who poses global questions, and like Werner, he is an ideologist, a skeptic, a reasoner and a materialist. Krupov’s theory that the world is insane, everyone is mentally ill, and the society, rather than patients, needs to be treated is actually not as unambiguous as it seems, if you believe the opinions of the character himself and the critics who wrote about Herzen’s story. The uncertainty of the author’s attitude to Krupov’s theory endows the text with ambivalence, a certain playfulness. Contradictions of political ideas and the impossibility of their execution are overcome in Herzen’s works about Dr. Krupov by literary means, such as irony, satire, parody. Herzen came to favor literature over medicine in treatment of social diseases.

Keywords: Herzen, Lermontov, Goethe, doctor, type, character, skeptic, materialist, critic, madness, satire, irony, ambivalence

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F. M. Dostoevsky is one of the most prominent figures in the history of world culture and literature, whose work has had a strong influence on writers from different countries. The article examines the reception of F. M. Dostoevsky’s creative heritage in Turkish literature of the 20th and 21s centuries. The main translations of his works into Turkish from the 1920s to the present are noted, Turkish translators and researchers who studied the work of the Russian writer are named. The article provides an overview of the works of leading Turkish writers (P. Safa, S. Ali, A. H. Tanpinar, S. Agaoglu, D. Ozlu, V. O. Bener, B. Karasu, O. Atay, R. Ozdenoren, O. Pamuk, L. Tekin, M. Mungan, etc.) that reflect the ideas and images of F. M. Dostoevsky. The influence of his novels on Turkish literature was reflected in the similarity of themes, problems, ideas, motifs, images, narrative style, ways of depicting reality in the works of Turkish writers, especially at the level of artistic insight into tragic life collisions, universal values, human mental life, features and motifs of his behavior, as well as in the development of the novel as a genre. Master’s and doctoral dissertations of Turkish researchers, scientific articles, monographs, publications in journals, interviews with Turkish writers were used as sources of research.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Turkish literature, comparative studies, reception, genre, novel, Russian novel, Dostoevsky novel, motifs, images, ideas, heroes

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The article examines the Christian foundations of the aesthetic views of V. G. Rasputin, which he expressed in various speeches, journalistic articles, and literary works. Tying Russian literature with the adoption of Christianity in Russia, Rasputin argued that it inherited the “science of the soul” taught by the church, patristic principles, and Christian laws and commandments. All the criteria for evaluating literary phenomena of the past and present for the writer are based on Christian categories and laws. Rasputin understands literature as the main factor in the formation of the Russian nation, along with the Orthodox faith, as a “powerful incentive” “for the creation of a Russian person.” Literature contributed to the “artistic and moral design of the soul” of the Russian person, fulfilled a “priestly mission.” Rasputin considered the most important thing in the writer’s work to be its spiritual and moral impact on the reader. The writer believed that the primary task of Russian literature at the present stage of development is “the salvation of the nation,” “the salvation of Russian spirituality.” As the writer claimed, the basis of Russian civilization is the redemptive synodic principle. The writer’s views are embodied in his work, which recreates a truly “Orthodox image of the world.”

Keywords: V. G. Rasputin, Christian traditions, Orthodox code, biblical allusions, synodic principle

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The article aims to analyze one of the aspects of the historical poetics concept proposed by A. V. Mikhailov (“a step from the present”). Together with “a step from the past,” methodologically detailed by A. N. Veselovsky, it allows to approach a significant scientific category of the “moving measure” in literary works. The authors investigate the main aspects of this category. Firstly, the question is posed in regard to the need for research reflection aimed at carefully identifying the “back projection” in the interpretations of the classics, which is an “appropriation” of a classical text, its adaptation to the language of modern culture. “Back projection” interferes with the comprehension of the inherent meanings of a work of art. Secondly, it is the idea of the dynamics of the literary works’ meanings, determined by the constant process of “metamorphosis of the Word,” which requires decoding through the “reverse translation” of a work, its return to the cultural context that had formed the boundaries and vector of its meanings. Thirdly, the “moving measure” is understood as the prospect of analyzing the interpretations of the classics from different cultural epochs as “the voice of the work itself.” It opens up the possibility of including the facts of non-institutional literary criticism in the object of historical poetics, in addition to literary evaluations and opinions, and the subsequent development of analytical techniques for identifying “all interpretative halos” of a classical text.

Keywords: historical poetics, historicity of literature, “moving measure,” languages of culture, literary classics

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