Vol 17, No 2 (2019)

The article considers the mythological sources of Pohjola image and contains a holistic description of this locus based on all available versions of epic runes. The Kalevala metric runes (234 texts) gathered in different years in Karelia and published in several collections, are used as a research material. The history of studying of the storyline of the trip to Pohjola, in one way or another touched upon in the works of foreign and Russian researchers, is described in the article. The textological and structural-semantic analysis of folklore texts, some of which form part of Lönnrot’s Kalevala, made it possible to reveal the entire polysemy of the image under consideration. The study indicated that Pohjola is identified with a far, transcendental world, the realm of the dead and the land of exuberancy. The talent of the mistress of Pohjola to become a bird alludes to her connection with the animal world, as well as the connection with the image of a shaman who in the likeness of a bird is able to travel from one world to another. The female nature of the main character of Pohjola reflects the matriarchal tribal system of society, and the motif of giving her daughter in marriage to a representative of another world — reveals the echoes of exogamous relations. Pohjola is localized in the spatial plane mainly separated by the watershed that fits into the concept of a horizontal arrangement of the Universe.

The article is dedicated to the problem of the sources of a brief notice about the death of A. S. Pushkin, released on January 30, 1837 in the 5th issue of “Literary Additions” (“Literaturnye Pribavleniya”) — a supplement to the newspaper “Russian Invalid” (“Russkiy Invalid”). It is proved that the semantics of the figurative definition of the importance of Pushkin as “The sun the Russian poetry” according to V. F. Odoevsky goes back to the Bible, in which the sun’s symbolism is equivalent to the connotation of the necrologic notice. A significant source of the image of “the sun of poetry” in Odoevsky’s obituary is the creative heritage of Pushkin in which the sun appears as a majestic, sacral source of life, full of true, Divine wisdom, giving people the joy and happiness and pointing at a saving way. This semantics of the image can be seen in the poems “Bacchanal Song”, “From Barry Cornwall” (“I Drink to Mary’s Health”), in the critical essay “The Triumph of Friendship, or Acquitted Alexander Anfimovich Orlov” and the last lifetime publication of the great poet in “Literary Additions” — the poem “Aquilon”. The textual convergence of the definition of the significance of Pushkin given in his obituary by Odoevsky with the words of Metropolitan of Kiev Cyril “the sun of the fatherland set below the horizon” from the “History of the Russian State” by Karamzin, going back to the “Power Book” (“Stepennaya Kniga”), is explained by a common biblical authentic source.

The article explores the religious and political transformation of Gogol’s ideas about the “enlightened sovereign”. For the first time, the real phenomena that contributed to the formation of Gogol’s concept are covered, in particular, the pedagogical activity of one of Gogol’s school teachers, director of the Grammar School of Sciences in Nezhin, I. S. Orlaya; mentorship for women’s schools in Russia of their patrons, Empresses Maria Fyodorovna, Elizaveta Alekseevna and Alexandra Fyodorovna; a program of education set before contemporaries by S. S. Uvarov, Minister of Public Education; the article The Empress Maria by P. A. Pletnyov, published in 1836 in the first issue of Pushkin’s Sovremennik. Gogol’s ideas about the monarch- teacher manifest themselves in his works. Gogol’s reflections on education, on the role of pedagogy in government are compared with the views of A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Pomyalovsky, N. S. Leskov. The autobiographical principle in Gogol’s works is revealed, in particular, the influence of the patriotic education in his alma mater — Grammar School of Sciences in Nizhyn — on the creation of the novel “Taras Bulba”.

The issue of differentiation between the povest’ and the novel is one of the most difficult problems in Russian criticism. To this day, critics and readers confuse these genres designating the same literary works both as novels and povest’. The discussions are becoming complicated by non-genre meanings of genre definitions. One of the few creators of the theory of the povest’ and the novel was Vissarion Belinsky. In his view, the povest’ is a middle genre: shorter than the novel, but longer than the short story, a kind of the novel (its episode). In his late criticism, he considered the novel and the povest’ a “sort of poetry”. This situation was reflected in the discussions of Dostoevsky’s novels and povest’ written in the 1840s. The majority of critics identified Poor Folk as a novel, few considered it a povest’, some of them wrote about the povest’ The Double as a novel. Dostoevsky himself occasionally used to label non-genre categories for his own literary pieces and works by other writers. In his opinion, the povest’ is not only a genre, but a type of narration, the content of a writing, a message, “a tale about the past” (Vladimir Dahl). Any epic work could be called a povest’. As often as not, a mixture of the povest’ and the novel was made intentionally. In the polemics regarding Dostoevsky’s debut, the whole range of genre and non-genre definitions can be found. Their consideration helps to solve the problem of differentiation between epic genres such as the povest’ and the novel.

The article describes a number of methodological problems in the study of Dostoevsky’s biographical narrative and his receptive tradition as a whole: the subjectivity of traditional research approaches, the receptive conflict between the biographical myth and negative “doubles” of the writer, the contradictions of mass and individual perception. The author, in search of the most common elements of Dostoevsky’s biographical narrative, turns to pre- revolutionary encyclopaedic articles about the writer. It is presumed that the genre itself, in which the biographical narrative exists here, excludes subjective distortions of the image, represents Dostoevsky in the most generalized, “common” version. This image of Dostoevsky is emphasized literary-centered, at the same time grotesquely simplified and equipped with a parodying double. At the same time, the structure of these articles is inherently contradictory: it faces the author’s subjective assessment, which penetrates even into informational and encyclopedic editions, and the logic of the formation and development of Dostoevsky’s image in the space of the “cultural unconscious”. In other words, the mythological perception of the writer cannot be defeated by any bright critical reflection, nor by the official fixation and propaganda of the historical and literary canon. Finally, the mythological image of the writer, unconsciously created by the mass reader, is in some aspects more dependent on the logic of Dostoevsky’s life and literary text, and therefore sometimes more accurate.

The article shows the semantic and semiotic dynamics in Russian literature of the 19th–20th centuries of the locus of alley as an element of an “estate topos” associated with love between a man and a woman. If the summer “dark alleys” were a place of romantic dates and clarifications in the Pushkin- Turgenev tradition, dating back to the European discourse of the 18th century, the autumn alleys, having something in common with famous Zhukovsky’s and Lermontov’s elegies, constitute a part of the Silver age literature as the idealization of the “Onegino-Larin” estate in the context of its irreparable loss (N. S. Gumilev, etc.). In the post-revolutionary works by I. A. Bunin the estate culture is seen as the apogee of Russian history, which has maintained, despite the loss of empirical existence, the status of an unfading timeless standard. The cycle of stories “Dark alleys” (1937–1953) — a monument of Russian estate culture — presents the seasonal completeness of the alleys; their symbolism extends to the entire past Russian and present emigrant life, overpassing thematic, time and even national bounderies. The “Estate topos” and its elements assume unexpected modifications and undergo deep, almost unrecognizable transformations, up to a Bedouin tent in the Judean desert and an extinct town in the south of Spain. The unusual dynamics of the image of the alley in the story “Muse”: from spring directly to winter is a symptom of the shift and break in the estate topography of both the Golden and Silver ages in Russian literature. Discreteness, an internal breach, a terrifying proximity of death brings it back to the origins of the Renaissance (“Decameron” by G. Boccaccio), actualizes its specific universal character. Therefore, a scientific originality of the article consists in revealing of the dynamics of the “estate topos” in Russian literature of the 19th–20th centuries, related to the change of the modes of its representation: from the ”summer” completeness of existence to the “autumn” decline; in the proposal of the term “estate habitus” that explains the capacity of the “estate topos” for new modifications; as well as in the display of an all-European substrate of the estate image in Russian literature of the middle of 20th century.

The biblical themes and motifs found in the early works of Boris Zaytsev have not been completely studied by the literary scholars. Different researchers (E. F. Dudina, N. A. Ivanova, O. G. Knyazeva and others) analyzed the presence of the New Testament motifs in the story “Agrafena” and the novel “The Distant Land”, but did not relate them to the context of a country estate through which they were conveyed. That makes the study of these works a priority from the Christian point of view. This article studies these two works: a novel and a short story — and demonstrates the presence of the motif of returning to an estate after an ordeal, or suffering, or delusion, which is shown like the return of the prodigal son to the father’s house; the motif of gaining the faith conveyed as the opportunity to hear and understand oneself, to get into harmony with nature after returning home; the motif of humility, acceptance of the fate, bearing one’s cross. Orthodox symbolism (the chalice of sorrows, the stormy sea of life, a stone as the foundation for a new faith) is seem as an important sign for the characters on their way, indicating the right choice, helping them to realize their mission. The motif of a miracle seeing, a dream in “Agrafena”, taken by the main character as a divine revelation, is of great importance. In these texts, the country estate becomes a topos the spiritual evolution of characters is closely related to.

The image of Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya, one of the best wives in Russian literature, has been repeatedly embodied in works of art. It helped represent better the personality of the Russian writer and appeared before readers and spectators as an ideal of the female devotion and selfless service to the husband. One of these works is the play by Edvard Radzinsky “An Old Actress in the Role of Dostoevsky’s Wife”, the interpretation of which is given in this article. Radzinsky with the help of the motif of the game and the reception of “the play in the play” masterfully connects the fate of two women of different epochs, Anna Dostoevskaya and an old actress performing her role. The last one thanks to her fervent acting rebuild the reality of the past, the life that disappeared, but recorded in the memoirs of Dostoevsky’s wife. For the actress herself, the role of Anna Grigorievna, performed without the presence of spectators and without using a recording film is a desperate attempt to escape from her loneliness, to overcome the tragedy of aging and uselessness. Comprehending the nature of Anna Grigoryevna’s character and her great love for Dostoevsky, the actress returns to life through creativity, the play-acting for her becomes life, wins the decline of life and death, saves from emptiness and aimlessness of the surrounding reality. The metaphor of play-acting is put into practice, the boundaries between art and reality disappear. The play “An Old Actress in the Role of Dostoevsky’s Wife” with its deep content has an extraordinary emotional power of influence on the reader and viewer.