Volume 21, 2023 year

The article discusses the underlying causes of a new wave of axiological rejection of I. S. Shmelev, which, as the author of the work demonstrates, has a negative attitude towards the image of historical Russia, depicted in the writer’s top works: “Praying Man” and “The Summer of the Lord.” At present,there is a tendency of academic reduction of the religious (Orthodox) dominant idea of the late Shmelev in themodern studies of his work, which is motivated by the correction of “one-sidedness” in the works of non-Soviet researchers and their post-Soviet followers about the writer.The author analyzes the poetics of the writer, highlights the dominant concepts of this poetics.Although the article does not only review the writer’s literary texts, it emphasizes that the Christian tradition, in which Shmelev’s artistic work is rooted, does not manifest itself separately from his poetics (in the “worldview,” journalistic, critical, epistolary texts), but does so in the poetics of his works of art.The poetics of the late Shmelev in the great time of Russian culture seems to contain the national image of the Russian world.It demonstrates how exactly artistic time and space in the writer’s works are deeply connected with the fundamental categories of Orthodox consciousness.

Keywords: poetics, Shmelev, axiology, Easter nature, paskhal’nost’, sobornost’, myth, reality, historical Russia

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Value categories are not directly manifested in Russian bylinas, being established obliquely through an artistic rendering of the consequences (whether positive or negative) that are raised by the hero’s axiologically motivated act. Therefore, it is possible, on the one hand, to identify and describe a number of axiological categories reinforced in Russian epic poetry through their permanent relationship with the consequences of the act they caused that are favorable for the hero. Among these categories are the honor of certain “external” — with respect to the hero — realities (i.e., sacred objects and principles), the collective fame of all Russian knights, the so-called “knightly gift” (in Russian, talan-uchast; literally, “talent-fate”) understood as a burden of unselfish service, and the “knightly heart” (serdce bogatyrskoe), treated in terms of its capability to be enraged by certain injustices or iniquities. All these categories coincide with the mindset of the “new man” as it was proclaimed by the Church Fathers (the renouncement of personal honor and personal fame, unselfish service using one’s own talent, and righteous zeal for the sacred objects). Simultaneously, the values depreciated in Russian bylinas, i.e., those connected with the negative consequences of the act they motivated: personal honor and personal fame, the “knightly heart” as a capacity to feel the so-called “heroic anger,” and the “knightly gift” seen as a personal right to wealth and high social status — coincide with the evil passions of the “old man,” which were discredited by the Church Fathers. All this allows us to assert that Russian folk epics should be seen as a phenomenon of Christian culture.

Keywords: folklore, bylinas, value analysis, Christian axiology, new man, old man

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The article considers the concept of “hero’s bride” in the context of the phenomenological approach based on six early texts of the Yakut Olonkho. In these texts we identified 28 suggestive epic formulas that are the main means of representing the concept being studied. As a result of the study, it was found that the nominative density of the concept “hero’s bride” includes the concepts of “female beauty,” “portrait,” “body,” “youngest daughter,” “needlework,” “clothes,” “braid,” “skylark.” The analysis of these concepts allowed to reveal the aesthetic preferences of female beauty in the minds of native speakers. It turned out that the representations of “female beauty” included such signs as shapeliness, slim body, beautiful face, long braid, white skin, rosy cheeks, thin eyebrows, shiny eyelashes, plump lips, snow-white teeth and restrained character. Particularly important were light, thin skin, through which both bones and veins are visible. The combination of these characteristics formed the idea of the “hero’s bride” — a perfectly beautiful woman who was the standard of beauty in the linguistic image of the world of the Yakuts in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. In addition, the predominance of the “braid” concept with referents “braid in sweep sazhen“ + “Kuo” indicates that this model of the concept explicated all the above aesthetic characteristics of the “hero’s bride” concept in the minds of the listeners. The foregoing indicates the presence of phenomenological associative connections, that is, the concepts once verbalized by the storytellers accumulated in the social memory of the epic audience. In other words, the phenomenon of speech activity, in which there the cumulative and interchangeable nature of concepts included in the conceptual area of the “hero’s bride” is revealed.”

Keywords: narrator, heroic epic, olonkho, image, beautiful maiden, hero’s bride, epic formula, concept, conceptual area, image of the world, nominative density, referent

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The article is devoted to the image of cuckoo in the Yakut Olonkho in comparison with the materials of the Altai, Khakas, Shorian and Tuvan epics. In total, 58 Yakut epic texts, including early records of the Olonkho of the 19th — early 20th centuries were analyzed. It is established that while in Turkic folklore the semantics of the image of the cuckoo was ambivalent on the whole, the epic mostly reflects a favourable or neutral attitude to this bird. In positive connotations, the “cuckoo” is more represented as a harbinger of well-being and prosperity. It was also revealed that the comparison “cuckoo the size of a horse’s head” previously functioned in all five examined epics; the Altai, Khakas, Shorian and Tuvan epics represented the “golden cuckoo” and the Yakut Olonkho — the “sonorously talking cuckoo”. Hence, the Yakut epic Olonkho could separate from the general, pro-Turkic epic before the development of the “gold cult,” and the earliest variant of the image of the Turkic cuckoo was preserved in it. Five main stable formulas containing the image of the cuckoo have been found in the Yakut epic tradition. All of them have positive connotations: the cuckoo appears as a symbol of eternal summer and prosperity; as a symbol of fertility; as a soothsayer preventing misfortune. The structural variants under the general concept of “the cuckoo-udaganka” represent this bird as a translator between the world of people and the supreme protective deity of the Yakuts, Yuryung Aar Toyon, thus the image of the cuckoo is closely associated with the image of a white sounorous-voiced udaganka. Also distinguished is a group of semantically heterogeneous constructions of the later period (post-1932), most of them with negative connotations, influenced by shamanism, folk omens and beliefs. Thus, the key role in the formation of the Yakut version of the cuckoo image was played by the Udagan culture, and at a later stage certain transformations were introduced by shamanism.

Keywords: Yakut Olonkho, Altai epic, Tuvan epic, Khakas epic, Shorian epic, image of the cuckoo, golden cuckoo the size of a horse head, folk comparison, totemism, shamanism, Udagan culture

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According to legend, the Venerable Ephraim of Torzhok was an 11th century ascetic, and the “ancient scripture” about him has been lost. The history of the saint was written anew: a Brief edition of his Life was created in the last quarter of the 16th century, an Extensive one — in the second quarter of the 17th century. The subject of research of this article is the poetics of the Life of St. Ephraim of Torzhok (mainly based on the material of the rhetorically adorned Extensive edition). The text’s highly complex structure is examined and attributed to the strong dependence of the Extensive edition on the Brief edition and to the special tasks that the compiler set for himself. The question of the place of the Life in the history of the hagiographic genre, and the ways in which traditional formulas and motifs, and biblical quotations work in the text is investigated along with the fragments of the composition marked by rhetorical means. The Life was probably created not so much with a focus on the hagiographic canon, but in the genre-appropriate language: the compiler of the Extensive edition approached the traditional elements of the hagiographic genre quite freely. One of the main events of the Life, both in the Brief and Extensive versions, was specifically the creation of the text about the saint. The fragmentary nature of the Life, which combines heterogeneous elements characteristic of folk and book lives, allows us to observe the process of formation of a new type of hagiographic text that took place in the 17th century.

Keywords: Life of St. Ephraim of Torzhok, hagiography, composition, biblical quotations, topoi, sources

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The subject of scientific reflection is the reception and creative interpretation of the ideas of Rousseauism as a special typological trend in the philosophy of the European Enlightenment, which largely determined the aesthetic and axiological principles of Russian sentimentalism, by the writer of the late 18th — early 19th century V. V. Izmailov. Rousseau’s ideas of “natural law,” “sensibility of the heart,” “virtue,” the opposition of “natural” and “civilized man” are the essential factors that determine the poetics of Izmailov’s works. They poetize the virtuous hero as a “man of nature,” the natural equality of people, life “in peace with nature and humanity”. The typology of conflicts and plot-compositional structures of Izmailov’s stories is genetically connected with the ideas of Rousseau’s social anthropology. Integrating the ideas of “education of the mind” and “education of the heart,” Izmailov the artist actualized in the heritage of the Genevan thinker not political, but moral and educational concepts of “creating good in the world,” with which he correlated the tasks of sociocultural progress in Russia after Peter the Great. The philosophical and aesthetic principles of Izmailov the writer, which go back to the ideas of Rousseauism, had a significant impact on the formation of the genre type of the Russian sentimental story and the poetics of the Russian travelogue. While maintaining his ideological sovereignty, the writer not only popularized the ideas of Rousseauism, but also argued with Rousseau on the problems of “civil education,” revising the “man vs. citizen” antithesis justified by the philosopher, critically perceiving his judgments about the negative impact of European civilization on the national way of life of the Russian people. In his social and literary activities, V. V. Izmailov actualized the Rousseauist ideas of the synthesis of the “natural” and “enlightened man,” seeing the prospects for the development of mankind in this.

Keywords: V. V. Izmailov, Rousseauism, sentimentalism, sensibility, natural person, civilized person, virtue, civil enlightenment, genre type, story, travelogue

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The subject of the research in this article is the battle motif in Lermontov's poetry. Special attention is paid to such significant examples of his battle lyrics as “Borodino” and “Valerik.” They are considered in terms of visualization of a verbal artistic image, the means of which is the engagement of painting and the creation of the effect of a sequential change of frames, which is a kind of prototype of the art of cinematography. Using the editing technique in reflecting reality, Lermontov creates an artistic whole in his poetic masterpieces from documented images of the place, time, opponents, scenes of the battle itself. By combining different image points, altering close-up and long-range views, creating a slow-motion effect, capturing separate frames, coloring techniques, animation, voicing, Lermontov achieves a tangible reality of military sketches in the verbal battle image he created. Lermontov's battle theme has ceased to be dissociated from military life itself, and the poet himself, being a direct participant in the events taking place, appears in it as an artist-witness and thinker at the same time. The innovation of Lermontov’s artistic system is revealed, associated with the creation of a documentary essay in poetic form, which endows the reader with the opportunity to objectively examine the military events in question. The article traces the evolution of the principles of creating an artistic image in the battle poetry of the late 18th — first third of the 19th centuries.

Keywords: M. Yu. Lermontov, poetics, battle scenes, image, visual, documentary, editing

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The article discusses V. Khlebnikov’s Iranian images associated with the poet’s stay in Gilan from April to July 1921. The relevance of the article is determined by the need to explore the Persian component of Khlebnikov’s poetics, which cannot be reduced to speculative and generalized Asian images. The article demonstrates the diversity of poetic manifestations of Gilan, depicted through its inhabitants, landscapes, mythology, ancient and contemporary history. The poem “Night in Persia” is proposed to be read as a spiritual experience of mastering space. The specifics of female images in the poems “Novruz of Labor,” “With a Copper Womb…” as well as the images of Gilan’s nobility in the poem “Gul-Mulla’s Trumpet” are analyzed. Gilan images made it possible to concretize the poet’s ideas about the unity of universal destiny. For the first time, the variants of the essay “The Iron Pen on the Willow Branch” are brought into discussion on the Eastern theme in Khlebnikov’s works. The simultaneous semantic connotations of the willow tree as a writing tool and a Christian symbol are defined. The composition of the essay recreates the logic of sacred history: from Palm Sunday to Easter. The tragic death of Gilan’s political leader Kuchuk-Khan is correlated with the idea of sacrificial love embodied in the avant-garde work of the artist P. Miturich. Thus, the poet contrasts the forced liberation of the East with its spiritual transformation through the efforts of poets and artists. The images of Gilan embody the poet’s ideas about the nature of Iranian influences and reflect the direct Persian impact on Russian literature, effectively expanding its boundaries.

Keywords: Khlebnikov, Asia, Iran, Gilan, Miturich, Easter, poetics of space, landscape, image, Russian-Iranian literary relations

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The authors analyze the corpus of Shakespearean and theater studies by a Russian writer and thinker Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887–1950), who wrote about Shakespeare since the 1920s. The purpose of the work was to review and streamline the principles of analysis of the image of Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s theater, Shakespeare’s dramaturgy in Krzhizhanovsky’s heritage, taking into account the newly discovered archival documents. The authors explore the works of Krzhizhanovsky as a kind of metatext, representing a look at Shakespeare from the standpoint of a figure of the Silver Age. Krzhizhanovsky, who did not follow the path of academic literary criticism or art criticism, in his essayistic studies evaluates the path of Shakespeare’s creativity and theater as a salvation from the temptation of metaphysical philosophy; he analyzes the nature of Shakespeare’s theater based on the concepts of time, ways of perception, gives a number of brilliant genre definitions for tragedy and comedy, explores the structure of Shakespeare’s play; he does all this in the context of his own time. At the same time, the authors detect certain dynamics: Krzhizhanovsky reasons about Shakespeare with global philosophical generalizations, where Shakespeare is a synonym for theater and theatricality; in the finale, in the 1940s, he goes deeper and focuses on private moments of creativity, such as Shakespeare’s “songs,” images of children in his plays, and so on.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Soviet reception of Shakespeare, comparative studies, comedy, tragedy, genre principles, translation

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The present study is devoted to the images of episodic characters in Gaito Gazdanov’s work that were styled after themain character of G. Flaubert’s short story “A Simple Soul” (“Un cœur simple”). The characters marked by the features similar to those of Felicite appear in many of the young émigré writer’s works of the 1920s and 1930s: they include the maid and the cook from the novel “Vecher u Kler” (“Evening at Claire's”), the cook from the story “Vecherniy sputnik” (“Evening Companion”) and a number of characters from “Nochnye dorogi” (“Night Roads”). The motifs of constantly shifting affections, absent-mindedness, thoughtfulness, “frozen” age, peasant origin and “woodenness” as a symbol of frozen immobility, bourgeoisness, “geographical cretinism,” etc. In some images, the intertextual layers are overlayed: in addition to Flaubert’s, this is the reception of the “Leninist cook,” who “must learn to manage the state” (as a symbol of the “substitution” of social roles and social timelessness). The images of Fedorchenko and Suzanne from “Nochnye dorogi” (“Night Roads”) intertwine the features of Flaubert’s “simple soul” Felicity and her “sister” Dushechka, as interpreted by Chekhov. (We have previously shown that the heroine of A. P. Chekhov’s story “Dushechka” was their literary prototype.) Thus, Gazdanov emphasizes that he felt the kinship between the characters of the French and Russian writers. The deciphering key to understanding Flaubert’s intertext in Gazdanov was the phrase from the dialogue about the cook in “Vecherniy sputnik” (“Evening Companion”): “I should write a book about her.”Here the subject of the author’s interest is fully revealed, its similarity to Flaubert’s understanding of the literary hero — the hero of any social class, worthy of becoming the subject of the author’s image.Gazdanov not only agrees with the French writer, but offers his own vision: all of the characters in question are addicted to alcohol. The heroes’ excessive drinking is their tragedy: alcoholic oblivion becomes a way for the everyman hero to endure mental suffering, to fill the emptiness of existence. This is Gazdanov’s interpretation of the very demand of a simple soul for feelings, depicted in Flaubert’s short story.

Keywords: Gazdanov, Flaubert, Chekhov, A Simple Soul (Un cœur simple), Vecher u Kler (Evening at Claire's), Vecherniy sputnik (Evening Companion), Nochnye dorogi, Night Roads, prototype, intertext, literary prototype, intertextuality, polygenetic, motif, secondary character

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The article analyzes the semantics of the image of the holy fool in V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin’s short stories “Holy Fool” and “Glebushka the Holy Fool.” The image of the holy fool in the author’s prose took shape under the influence of the Old Russian literary tradition, works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Shmelev. Nomination of the holy fool in the prose writer’s works reflects the character’s childishness and soul purity, characteristic for this image. Glebushka the Holy Fool from the eponymous short story is a big child, and he is praying for forgiveness for his people, who are burdened with great sins. The holy fool in V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin’s short stories is a traveler, a pilgrim who lives outside the community. An encounter with him makes other characters rethink their lives, and offers an opportunity for repentance and life changes. Nikitushka (“Holy Fool”) is a messenger of the spiritual world; he appears to be reverend-like for one of the story’s characters. This hero appeals to the characters’ conscience without words, notations or rebukes; he relates to the motifs of spiritual transformation and enlightenment. The repentant bandit bows to the ground before the holy fool, thus pleading for forgiveness, and expressing humbleness and awe of the sanctitude. In this short story, Nikitushka the Holy Fool becomes the one who helps the wayward sinner reach God.The world of angels is close to the holy fool. V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin’s short stories present angels either as the holy fool’s interlocutors, or characters in the spiritual poems recited by the holy fool.The holy fool is an advocate not only for salvation for particular people, but for all of Russia.

Keywords: V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin, prose of Russian abroad, story, holy fool, motif, semantics, Orthodoxy, spiritual poems

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The article is devoted to the reflection of the "three worlds" concept of Grigory Skovoroda in the philosophical lyrics of Arseny Tarkovsky, who considered the Ukrainian thinker his spiritual teacher. His religious and mystical concept provides for the mutual harmonious interaction of the macrocosm (Universe), microcosm (man) and the symbolic world of the Bible. Using the example of selected poems, the artistic content and poetic structure of images of macro- and microcosm are analyzed. The spatial element of the chronotope in Tarkovsky’s poetry is very revealing. In some cases, it directly correlates with the category of the microcosm. One of its most representative manifestations is the space of the steppe. It retains all the signs of a traditionally self-sufficient geographic landscape with its characteristic realities, and at the same time appears as a universal spiritual space that imparts a sense of inner freedom. The holistic spatial perspective of the macrocosm unfolds both horizontally (steppe and other topoi) and vertically: from the earth to the sky and further to the stars. Tarkovsky’s microcosm, like Skovoroda’s, has a religious and ethical connotation. It is represented by highly suggestive images of a lyrical hero, who gazes intently at the world around him, feeling an integral part of it. Not only is the microcosm likened to the macrocosm, but the great world is organically humanized in the process of active interaction. Tarkovsky’s awareness of the harmonious relationship between the Universe and the man is often realized through biblical contexts, both evident and concealed.

Keywords: Arseny Tarkovsky, philosophical lyrics, Grigory Skovoroda, three worlds concept, macrocosm, microcosm, Bible

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The article is devoted to the study of the poetics of the image of Princess Xenia, the main heroine of E. Vodolazkin's novel "Justification of the Island," in the context of the hagiographic tradition. The image of Xenia is endowed with the features inherent in the righteous hero thanks to a whole complex of hagiographic topoi used by the author: fervent faith, otherworldliness, the ability to foresee the future, the choice of a "celibate marriage," etc. The same features can be traced in the description of the child's image of Xenia, and in the plot drawing associated with the heroine in different periods of life. The article draws typological parallels with the hagiographic saint Ulyana Osoryina. At the same time, the external level of the hagiographic topic, oriented towards the formal side of image construction, is reinforced by the corresponding axiological imperative. The latter is the idea of spiritual and physical salvation, which manifests itself in the plot of the novel. The key feature of the author's narrative is the combination of hagiographic and literary techniques in building the image of the righteous. The hagiographic features are complemented by artistic, purely novelistic features, which makes the poetics of the image more complicated: it is characterized by internal conflict, emotionality, elements of psychologism that are not characteristic of the hagiographic righteous. The image of Xenia remains integral, the hagiographic tradition does not undergo a transformation, but on the contrary, intensifies the image, explicating new meanings for the reader. The dominance of Xenia’s image, expressed in the idea of salvation, testifies to its belonging to the hagiographic tradition.

Keywords: Е. Vodolazkin, The Justification of the Island, hagiography, Christian axiology, hero, righteous man, poetics of image, motive, novel

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