卷 23, 编号 1 (2025)

Alexander Pushkin’s poem “He lived among us…” (1834), dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz, contains a retelling of the Polish poet’s speeches about humanity striving for unity. The article offers an answer to the question of how adequate their transmission is and whether there are appropriate formulations in Mickiewicz’s own poems. Pushkin’s paraphrase of Mickiewicz’s statements allows us to draw conclusions about the peculiarities of Russian and Polish poets’ work, the similarities and differences between their artistic worlds. The poetic dialogue between Mickiewicz and Pushkin about the future of nations began before this poem was written. The Russian poet is more traditional in his work and is not inclined to ideological utopias. However, when he turns to the image of Mickiewicz, he uses his characteristic train of thought. What in Mickiewicz are words without additional shades of meaning, in Pushkin acquires a universal conciliar meaning. The genius of the Russian poet lies in the fact that he does not object to Mickiewicz’s words about the unity of nations, but continues and elevates them.

The article provides an analytical review of literary criticism speeches in the weekly “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”) in 1872. In the course of the conducted attribution, the contribution of N. N. Strakhov, P. K. Shchebalsky and B. M. Markevich to the formation of the publication’s literary policy was revealed. A number of their articles were introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. “Literary letters” by N. N. Strakhov restarted the formation of the pochvennichestvo foundation of aesthetic criticism, which A. A. Grigoriev and F. M. Dostoevsky began in “Vremya” and “Epocha,” and he continued in the “Zarya” magazine. According to Strakhov, the chaos in modern criticism had philosophical roots, namely, an unbridled faith in progress, when everything new seems to be a complete replacement for the old. In his articles, P. K. Shchebalsky developed the foundations of M. N. Katkov’s aesthetic positivism, so an intra-editorial polemic with the “metaphysician” Strakhov was inevitable on his part. B. M. Markevich’s articles, in turn, were aimed at overcoming the hostility of “advanced” society to “aestheticism”. In general, through the efforts of these critics and despite all the intra-party disagreements, “Grazhdanin” contributed to the transition of Russian aesthetic criticism from the liberal to the conservative camp, which took place in the 1860s and 1870s. The weekly turned out to be a target for both radical and liberal journalists, and the unity of the criticism department of “Grazhdanin” in 1872 in this struggle lasted only six months. The following year the new editor F. M. Dostoevsky restored this department and continued the transformation of aesthetic criticism towards conservative principles. The revealed circumstances do not confirm the established scientific idea of the “short days of Russian aestheticism”. The history of aesthetic criticism in the 19th century should be written with regard to all its twists and turns, starting from Karamzin and Zhukovsky to Vl. Solovyov and K. Leontiev.

The article offers an understanding of F. M. Dostoevsky’s first novel in the context of a new aesthetic created by the writer, the essence of which is expressed in the deliberate de-aestheticization of the narrative, producing the illusion of artlessness and tongue-tie. The subject of Dostoevsky’s artistic play in “Poor People” also turns out to be fine literature in its sentimental and romantic interpretation, the axiology of which is being decanonized. The long-standing “maidenhood,” daydreaming that is divorced from the fundamental foundations of the life of the novel’s main character are the author’s evaluative metaphor of the once influential style. Rataziev’s “delicious” literature, the commercial product of a clever cynical writer represents even greater degradation of the romantic, satirically depicted in Dostoevsky’s novel. Dostoevsky conducts his dialogue with Pushkin and Gogol in the framework of artistic rivalry. The author combines the worlds of Gogol and Pushkin in “Poor Folk,” balancing the illusory and the real. The humane and philanthropic tendency or the social theme, which the writer’s lifetime critics saw in the novel, is transformed by Dostoevsky into a metaphysical issue, which will contribute to the development of Christian realism in the writer’s future work. In the context of socialist utopias, “Poor folk” appear as their artistic negation: paradise on earth is impossible, and Dostoevsky is only searching for ways to find it in the human heart. A saving thought arises: man is the Light for man.

The article examines the fairy tale by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “Chizhikov’s Grief.” Up until now, researchers have not taken into account certain significant circumstances when interpreting “Chizhikov’s Grief.” First of all, it is the unusual love and family theme of the tale, which is not characteristic of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s work (moreover, it was repeatedly criticized by him as ‘outdated’); and, secondly, the publication of the tale in the Christmas issue of “Russkie Vedomosti,” which provides reason to consider its text within the “Christmas story” tradition. The theme of love and family and the peculiarities of the poetics of “Chizhikov’s Grief” suggest that the fairy tale contains elements of intertextuality: it “refers” the reader, on the one hand, to the tradition of the naturalistic novel popular in the 1870s — 1880s, and on the other hand — to the Christmas stories by Ch. Dickens. M. E. Saltykov was critical of naturalist writers, opposing them to Ch. Dickens and N. V. Gogol. This contradiction is reflected in the structure of “Chizhikov’s Grief,” where the first part of the tale contains elements of parody of the naturalistic novel’s poetics (i.e., in E. Zola’s work), and the second part resembles the plot model of Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” (the transformation of the “misanthropic hero” who travels the path with “guilt-correction-redemption” as the key milestones). Analyzing the poetics of “Chizhikov’s Grief” allows to understand the author’s concept of the fairy tale: critically comparing the “earthiness” of the naturalist writers and the “idealism” of Ch. Dickens and N. V. Gogol, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin emphasizes the importance of the ideal component of private life. The problem of love and marriage is resolved in “Chizhikov’s Grief” in the style of the Christmas (Easter) tradition: sublime love revives the dead soul of the hero, while in the tale’s open ending the only positive variant of conflict resolution is the heroes’ acquisition of Christian values: forgiveness and love. Thus, behind the numerous literary contexts, irony and satire, the tale conceals a moral absolute that’s distinctive to the national consciousness; and this absolute was the personal position of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

The reading of the sacred text is considered in the article as a formalized action (reading the sexton in the prison church in the novel “Resurrection,”) as an event that radically changes the lives of the characters (Chuev and Pelageyushkin in the story “The Fake Coupon,”) as a process of gradual approach of the characters to higher truths (Nekhludoff in the final part of the novel “Resurrection,” Svetlogub and the old man-bespopovets in the story “Divine and Human.”) The traditional form of reading, characterized by the comprehension of the sacred word by the reader and listener, is presented in the story “Where Love Is, God Is” and in the story “The Fake Coupon.” In the first work, this type of reading is given by the pretext — the story of the pastor, Protestant Evangelist R. Silence, “Father Martin.” In the light of the hagiographic tradition, Tolstoy highlights the acceptance of evangelical truths and the spiritual upheaval in Pelageyushkin, the hero of the story “The Fake Coupon.” Due to the traditional reading mode, Tolstoy emphasized the reader (listener) from the common people. The “personal” type of reading is correlated with intermediary characters (Kieseweter, the English missionary in The Resurrection, the old man in The Resurrection and in The Divine and the Human), who refer listeners to the sacred text and interpret it in their own way. Tolstoy shows that such a preachy approach to the sacred text leads to further separation of people. Understanding of the sacred text, which transcends the temptation of a purely personal interpretation in a person, transforms not only the hero-reader himself, but also determines the possibility of a beneficial effect of the words of Scripture on others. Another variant of the “personal” type of reading is depicted in the final scene of the novel “Resurrection” and in the story “The Divine and the Human:” rational characters (Nekhludoff, Svetlogub), who had no trust in the sacred text, independently come to understand and experience it. In the process of reading, the nature of their interpretation of the sacred text is transformed (skepticism is replaced by agreement), and the difference between traditional and “personal” reading is gradually minimized.

In the screenplay “The First Russians” (“Pervorossiyane,” 1965), Bergholz reinterpreted the history of the creation of the first Russian agricultural commune in Altai by St. Petersburg workers, which she first creatively mastered in the poem “Pervorossiysk” (1950). She filled the text with biblical symbols, mythopoetic images and new characters. The place where the relocated workers choose to create a commune is described in the text as a “legendary valley” with “biblical cedars” which in the Psalter are associated with the righteous. Biblical allusions can be traced in the image of Uncle Lesha the cannon founder, who escorted the migrant communards on their way: according to the description, the worker resembles the god of Нosts (Sabaoth), who sends his heavenly messengers into the world. Obsessed with the idea of social justice, the First Russians die as martyrs for it: the scenario is permeated by the metaphor of the bonfire, which establishes a connection with the figure of the Old Believer Protopope Avvakum. The spiritual make-up of the communards is reflected as in a mirror in the “iconographic face” of Efimiya, the daughter of the Old Believer Theodosius, who opposes the First Russians. The idea of the commune as an ideal social structure is comprehended by Bergholz through the Kitezh concept. St. Petersburg workers, drawing a plan of the future settlement of Novorossiysk, see it “through the water.” Novorossiysk, set on fire by the Cossacks, appears to the communard Vasily Gremyakin submerging into a reservoir, just as the mythical Kitezh-grad descends into the waters of Svetloyar Lake. The text illustrates the integration of the author’s religious and mythological consciousness with the communist worldview. Bergholz builds a national image of the world built around the Christian worldview and the Soviet model of social justice. The analysis is carried out using Bergholz’s diary entries and the transcript of the script discussion meeting at the “Lenfilm” Studio. Bergholz’s informative notes from the period of her work on the script and a transcript containing a polemic about biblical allusions in the text allowed to place more precise accents in the interpretation of the work.

The purpose of the article is to consider the laws of the formation and development of literary tradition in the poetics of V. G. Rasputin and V. I. Belov. The author aimed to study the development of the hagiographic tradition from the Middle Ages to the 20th century through refraction in the 19th-century Russian classics, who modernized the old models and endowed them with their own contents. Special attention is heeded to the transformation of the medieval hagiographic canon in “The Last Term” and “Live and Remember” by V. G. Rasputin, “Prince Alexander Nevsky” and “Such a War” by V. I. Belov. The author concludes that the poetics of village prose revives the medieval and classical genre traditions. However, while in Belov’s poetics the hagiographic tradition is dissolved in folk life and its internal philosophy, in Rasputin’s works, literary reclamation of hagiographic patterns is more essential. The analysis of the updated hagiographic model proves that the cathartic effect of purification and spiritual transformation, experienced by the reader through empathy and compassion for the saint and righteous hero, is of key importance in the implementation of this tradition and in the genre itself. In general, the study proves that the renewal of literary tradition involves periods of trial, depending on the socio-historical circumstances and the readers’ collective mindset.