Volume 20, 2022 year

The Life of Alexander Oshevensky is a compiled hagiographic work based on borrowings from a wide range of sources, which, due to this fact, can serve as convenient material for the study of the hagiographic canon as a problem of historical poetics. Fundamentally new in the work is the source-based approach to the problem, rooted in the belief that the establishment of direct sources used by the hagiographer is, in the absence of other evidence, practically the only way to solve it. The work on identifying literary sources of the Life of Alexander Oshevensky, begun by Ivan Yakhontov (1881), was more successful when it concerned the action and the plot, and far less successful when it concerned rhetorical digressions. The article examines the textual and artistic features of those fragments of the Life of Alexander Oshevensky, which, according to the assumption of researchers, were borrowed from the Life of Euphrosynus of Pskov, the Life of Isidorus of Rostov (the Tverdislov) and the Life of Antonius the Roman. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the direct source of these fragments were other literary monuments, namely the Life of Demetrius Prilutsky in the Menologian edition and the Life of Zosimus and Sabbatius of Solovki in the First Stylistic edition. The sources were determined using the methods of textual analysis, structural analysis and comparative analysis of a recurring motif in different hagiographic works. In addition, the article introduces into scientific circulation a previously unnamed source of the Life of Alexander Oshevensky, namely, the Life of Paulus of Obnora.

Keywords: Ancient Russian literature, Russian hagiography, Life of Alexander Oshevensky, motive, genre, hagiographic canon, literary borrowings

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The article is devoted to handwritten works of the 17th–19th centuries, in which the global plot known as “Marko the Rich” in Russian materials, is used: a rich man receives a prophecy that his son-in-law and heir will be the son of poor parents; he tries to ruin the boy, but the prediction comes true. The plot was known both in Europe and in the East, it penetrated into Russian literature in the Middle Ages. The focus is on four works: “Example” (Priklad) about the Caesar Conrad and the knight’s son from the “Roman Acts” (Gesta Romanorum), “The Tale of a Rich Merchant,” a short novel without a title from the manuscript codex of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Arkhangelsk collection, S. No. 138), “The Short Novel About the Rich and the Poor, and How God’s Destinies are Immutable” from the manuscripts of the 19th-century Pechora Old Believer scribe I. S. Myandin. The last two works are being examined for the first time. The article examines the composition and plot of the literary works, as a comparative material, folklore tales about Marko the Rich are used. Literary works differ in origin (“Example” is a translated work, the rest are original), in the time of creation, and in plot development. At the same time, they are all religious works that affirm the idea of the dependence of human fate on God’s providence. Genetic connections between the works are not clearly traced, and the appearance of certain motifs in the texts is explained by the influence of folklore tales.

Keywords: handwritten books, folklore tales, the plot of Marko the Rich, poetics of the plot, I. S. Myandin

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The article considers the process of transition of folklore fairy tales into literature, and the reverse process of their transition into the folk environment: the scope of the “folklore retelling” concept is determined, ways of acquaintance of folklore performers with literary fairy tales are highlighted, key questions of ethnopoetics of folklore are posed: what is the difference between the Russian fairy tales and the fairy tales of other peoples? What part of literary texts is preserved in the transition to folklore? Based on the concept of paraphrase in the interpretation of I. A. Esaulov, fairy tales that coincide with the plot types of Pushkin’s texts, recorded in the 20th century on the territory of the Karelian Pomerania, are analyzed. These materials are stored in the scientific archive of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Only two of these texts were published in the “Russian folk tales of the Karelian Pomerania” collection. The largest number of versions was recorded for the “Tales of the Fisherman and the Fish” plot. One version of the plot of “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs” from A. E. Starikov was discovered. The retellings of Pushkin’s “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” are characterized by the transformation of the image of the sea (the fairy tale by E. I. Ladina), the double folklore processing of the literary text (E. A. Sakharova) and brevity (A. I. Suslonova). The plot of the tale about the priest and his worker in the Karelian Pomerania was found twice: the first version almost completely repeats the literary text, the second one loses the Orthodox code of Pushkin’s text. The sea element is of particular importance in Pushkin’s texts. It can reflect the mood of the assistant (Fish), be the center of the universe or the habitat of evil spirits. In folklore retellings of Pushkin’s texts in the Karelian Pomerania, the sea is perceived as a natural barrier or is skipped. As they pass into the oral folk environment, Pushkin’s tales, as a rule, retain the Orthodox code of Russian culture.

Keywords: fairy tale, folklore retelling, A. Pushkin, paraphrases, Christianity, motif, plot, Karelian Pomerania

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The article provides a vivid comparison of the poetic devices developed by the authors of the Gothic novel with the models used by J. G. Byron in “Child Harold’s Pilgrimage” and the “Oriental Poems” cycle. The relationship between the Gothic villain and the Byronic hero is noted; perhaps they are even two facets of the same heroic type. They are both haunted by loneliness and alienation from society; both of these types are generally “scapegoats” or guilt-ridden wanderers. Such a heroic type is characterized by rebelliousness, a mysterious past, a painful struggle between good and evil in his soul. At the same time, the Byronic character is an absolutely modern type, while the Gothic villain is immersed in a conditional fantastic or historical context. Together with the Gothic protagonist, Byron’s texts acquire the plot collisions of the “black novel”, a closed chronotope, and romantic psychologism. After the appearance of Byron’s dramas, the “Byronic hero” archetype was formed, which became synonymous with the concept of “antihero” in English criticism, while in Russia it has different semantics: “superfluous person,” the product of “suffering and doubt.” The Byronic hero embodies the theme of metaphysical rebellion, conflict with the universe and the suffering associated with it. Through Byronic heroes, Byron most consistently stated that “world sorrow” is an inevitable product of time, its spiritual outcome. 

Keywords: Gothic novel, demonic villain, closed chronotope, Byronic hero, world sorrow, skepticism, melancholy

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The “Muses Scroll” poetic almanac was a typical manifestation of eclecticism in the art of the “transitional period” from classicism to sentimentalism at the very beginning of the 19th century with a claim to the formation of neoclassicism in the further history of Russian literature. An important circumstance was the desire of the authors of the poetic almanac to create innovative poetry, imbued with direct experiences of their feelings and emotions without the pathos and officialdom of the “outdated” classicism. However, such a desire for expressiveness is impossible without the explication of aesthetic categories and values that the authors of the almanac borrowed from ancient philosophers. The result of the aesthetic analysis was the identification in the works of the almanac of reminiscences of ancient philosophy in the description of the beautiful by Plato, the connection of beauty with truth by Plotinus, corporality by Seneca, the heroic and catharsis by Aristotle.

Keywords: antiquity, mythology, literature, philosophy, aesthetics, categories, reminiscences, poetry, almanac, Muses Scroll

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The article substantiates the necessity of using the “genre completion” category developed by P. N. Medvedev in the analysis of a work of art. “White Nights” is successively connected with the “Petersburg Chronicle” by F. M. Dostoevsky. This relationship is rooted in the proximity of the time of creation, linguistic and poetic techniques, and thoughts. The multifaceted relationship of the “White Nights” with the “Petersburg Chronicle” helps to understand the fundamental concept of the “sentimental novel.” Analyzing the symbolism of rhyming plot situations, images, details in the text (“web,” “yellow,” “lonely,” “Matryona,” etc.), numbers (8, 26, 15), the meaning of which is amplified and revealed in the epilogue, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that in “White Nights” the main idea of the work is artistically completed. This explains the mental crisis of the hero caused by the tragedy of reverie. Nastenka’s faithfulness in love helps the Dreamer to strengthen his faith in ideals. According to the type of genre completion, “White Nights” by F. M. Dostoevsky is a novel, which corresponds to the author’s concept of the work. There are two plot / composition levels in the novel and one completion for both. The author of the article proves that the analysis of the novel “White Nights” reveals the need to use the principles of P. N. Medvedev’s sociological poetics.

Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky, P. N. Medvedev, novel, plot, conclusion, dreaminess, hero, White Nights, St. Petersburg Chronicle, sociological poetics, genre theory, formal method

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Along with the glossary, the article describes graph models of the terminological thesaurus of the Gospel text by F.M. Dostoevsky, based on the clustering of bigrams as the most stable paired word combinations, taking into account the totality of their discursive features, including frequency of use, proximity in texts and semantic similarity. The identification and analysis of such bigrams as conceptual points of a terminological thesaurus is important for its network visualization, thanks to which it is clear in which conceptual conjugation key terms “work”, how they are distributed among certain thematic clusters. In one cluster there can be terms from different discourses. This is an important indicator of how the terms are conjugated, how integral, despite its interdiscursive nature, the metalanguage of modern studies of the Gospel text by F.M. Dostoevsky. That is, the terminological thesaurus performs in this case a diagnostic and predictive role in modeling a scientific language.

Keywords: Dostoevsky’s Gospel text, terminological thesaurus, graph model, digrams, concept

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The article analyzes the history of writing, stylistic features and composition of the play “Bliznetsy” (“Twins”) by Vadim Shershenevich based on Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night.” The play was written for a performance at the Moscow Operetta Theater (1939, composer A. Shenshin). The text of “Bliznetsy” was first published in 2022. The aim of this work was to analyze the artistic originality of the comedy text in the context of disputes on Shakespeare’s legacy conducted in the USSR in the 1930s. Based on archival documents, the authors recreate the history of writing “Bliznetsy” (in 1933—1938), analyze the discussions around the acceptability of the comic opera genre in relation to Shakespeare’s plays, the debates on the musical and literary dramaturgy of the play. Moreover, the article considers the principles of compositional restructuring in “Bliznetsy,” the poetic originality of the play, translation decisions and creative successes of Shershenevich, in particular, in writing comic dialogues. Despite the rare genre and unusually loose treatment of the original text, the production was recognized as one of the examples of an innovative Soviet musical performance and set a new tone in the translation of Shakespearean comedies. In particular, the refusal to copy Shakespeare’s puns led to the search for equivalent Russian comic elements, which were considered successful. For poet Shershenevich, previously known as a futurist and imagist, the work on the libretto provided an opportunity to apply creative power at a time when his own poems and translations were not published.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Vadim Shershenevich, Shakespeare’s reception, Twelfth Night, Bliznetsy, Twins, comic opera, Shakespeare’s translations, comedy, fool image

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The article analyzes the significance of the commemorative literary grand ducal almanacs of the 1880s in modern humanitarian scientific knowledge. The literary almanac of the 1880s is considered as a special type of almanac, shedding light on the evolution of the genre and the literary tastes of the House of Romanov. The albums stored in the specialized departments of Russia`s largest libraries once belonged to the personal collections of “Their Imperial Majesty`s Own Libraries” in the Winter, Anichkov, Gatchina, Vladimir, Marble, Strelna and other imperial palaces. After the coup d`etat of 1917, they were merged with the collections of the RSL, the RNB, and the Pushkin House. Today, these books are of considerable interest in terms of their genre originality and role in the evolution of the almanac. Important evolution-related typological features that disrupt the established patterns are highlighted. This applies, first and foremost, to the correlation of the type of publication itself and the poetics of texts. The logic of the functioning of the calendar collection (calendar, “pocket book”, literary commemorative album) chronologically covers an extremely wide time range from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. The date sequence (the sequence of the annual circle) correlates with the filling principles. The timing of the analyzed texts can be traced to certain events. In this particular case, they are traced to the events in the life of the Imperial family. The calendar principle of publication structure sets an appropriate rhythm in the albums, where the pages, according to the epigraph (1885 ed.), are “filled with the memory of the heart.” In the aggregate of data, each extant instance is a complex compositional system of multilevel interpretation (“multilevel artifact”).

Keywords: Literary almanac calendar, Duma by Duma, Day by Day, ontology of poetics, the Imperial Family

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The article analyses the memoir notes of Ivan Bunin and his contemporaries, who knew him closely, which express his attitude to death. Bunin’s notes, drafts and diaries are full of his reflections on the subject of finiteness of human life. In conversations with relatives and friends he confessed that he “is obsessed with the death” and that he “is afraid of it.” The theme of death is the key issue in many of Ivan Bunin’s prosaic and poetic works. In the book “The Life of Arsenyev,” which can be considered the writer’s autobiography, he mentions the fact that the acceptance of death has made him think about the existence of God and the existential dilemma for the first time. Bunin’s fear of death was a kind of a phobia reflected in all his works. The idea of the finiteness of existence is based not only on the perception and feelings of some of Bunin’s characters, but also on the fate of entire social classes. This is why Bunin’s imagery is characterized by a nostalgic, elegiac tone, the “matte silver” colour (according to M. Gorky). The writer rebels against the inevitability of death the way children do (“I will not give in”) and the way writers do by using their works as a line of defense in the struggle over time (“Now you are a thought. You are eternal”). A specific thanatological perception of the world sharpened his attention to Buddhism and to the doctrine of reincarnation. The “law of beauty” for Bunin is based on an eschatological view. That is why he doesn’t write about the future and interprets everything related to the ideal, nature and eternity in a Christian way.

Keywords: Ivan Bunin, theme of death, thanatological worldview, memoirs, creativity, religiosity, history, evolution, psychologism, Christianity, aesthetics, poetics

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The article analyzes certain methods of expressing the author’s position in A. Platonov’s fantastic short novel (povest’) “The Ethereal Tract.” The genre structure of this short novel is based on a complex synthesis of fantastika and reality, which connects mythological and eschatological archetypes in the genre subtext and reveals the author’s general intentions. The author’s view is manifested in the choice of the genre: the short novel (povest’) as a genre is focused on the narrative of what happened in the past, the definition of “fantastic” sets a completely different vector of movement — it is a look into the future, at what only can be. Thus, the “possibility of the impossible” is asserted — this is how the writer conceived of the fantastika. Platonov also resorts to other means of expressing the author’s position in the text: to irony (and often self-irony, if we take into account the autobiographic nature of his prose), to the grotesque, as a means to “scale” what is depicted, to the antithesis as a way of revealing the contradictions of life. However, by colliding with each other and contrasting the characters and their ideas, as well as fantastika and reality, myth and eschatology, the writer tries to arrive at some kind of synthesis in order to find the truth in the spirit of the Hegelian triad; the same technique underlies his genre strategy. Platonov bases his plot structure on quite real and useful achievements of scientific and technological progress, but strengthens the fantastic element of the plot, which leads to the opposite, negative effect. Platonov’s heroes do not see the boundaries between science and fantastika, or between fantastika and eschatology. However, the author sees this, so fantastika and reality, myth and eschatology in the poetics of Platonov’s short novel (povest’) acquire new connections: fantastika destroys not only utopia, but also myth. But in place of the mythological consciousness, which is able to somehow explain certain phenomena, fruitless eschatological aspirations come. As a result, both the author and the reader come to the conclusion that, despite the successes of science, a person still knows too little about himself and the world and has not reached the level of moral perfection to be worthy of his discoveries.

Keywords: A. Platonov, Ethereal Tract, short novel, science fiction, fantastika, myth, eschatology, utopia, author’s position

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The article is devoted to research of the hagiographic tradition in A. Varlamov’s story ‘Star’. A genetic connection between the image of the main female character Liza Nepomiluyeva and hagiographic images at the value and structural levels is established. A connection between the story and the text of E. Bagritsky’s poem ‘The Death of a Pioneer’, in which the anti-Christian ideal of a little girl refusing to wear a cross on her deathbed takes centre stage, can be discovered. A. Varlamov’s story can be viewed as an axiological antithesis to E. Bagritsky’s text and, more broadly, to the idea of a new and revolutionary type of hero actively asserted in Soviet literature of the 1930s. The story under consideration presents a different type of literary ideal based on evangelical values. The central image of the first grader Liza Nepomiluyeva has the characteristic features of a hagiographic hero, while the artistic space of the story associated with the image of Liza includes the idea of the sacred. The pattern of the heroine’s image is determined by the dominant of cardiognosis, or, in other words, comprehension of the world by heart. The category of cardiognosis not only places the image of Liza in the space of the beatitudes but is also plot-forming and determining the entire architectonics of the literary work. The author’s appeal to hagiography is also revealed in a special motive complex, the motives of suffering, the cross and cross-bearing, the meek bearing of reproach, which can be considered as an allusion to the martyrly life. In such a way, the reception of the hagiographic tradition in the text of A. Varlamov allows us to speak about the ideality of the image of the main character, thereby elevating it to the idea of holiness, and about the belonging of the work to the national spiritual tradition.

Keywords: hagiographic tradition, Modern Russian prose, A. Varlamov, reception, hagiographical topic, biblical allusion, cardiognosis, Christian axiology

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