Volume 18, Nº 2 (2020)

The article analyzes the contribution of Russian literary critic, doctor of Philology, Professor Ivan Andreevich Esaulov to the study of theoretical and historical poetics revealing his central scientific ideas and principles of building a new concept of the history of Russian literature. The researcher introduced several concepts as philological categories that had never been used in Philology before. These are sobornost' (conciliarism), paskhal'nost' (Easter character), Zakon i Blagodat' (Law and Grace), Christocentrism. Esaulov proposed a new definition of the content of Russian literature thanks to these categories. The researcher proved the fruitfulness of his approach for understanding Russian literature. The material for analysis is rather extensive: from Metropolitan Hilarion’s Word about Law and Grace to the works of writers of the late 20th century. Esaulov’s most important methodological position is the need to distinguish between analysis, understanding and interpretation. These are different approaches to studying a work of art. The scholar also introduces and justifies the concept of “spectrum of adequacy”, which implies a plurality of interpretations of a literary work.

The article examines the orthodox tradition of paying homage to Venerable Mary of Egypt. The perception of the image of Mary of Egypt is compared with that one of Mary Magdalene in the West-European World, particularly in literature and art. The different forms of interaction between the hagiography of Mary of Egypt and Russian literature are traced: adaptation of the plot, allusions, insertion of the motif of a repented whore. The plot of Cleopatra, as of an impenitent whore, is opposite to a hagiographic plot (by its semantic pole of attraction). Two female images symbolize two divergent paths — to spiritual rebirth and to the ruin. As a result of the analysis of the works of A. Pushkin, I. Aksakov, N. Leskov, V. Bryusov, A. Remizov it is deduced that both plots turned out to be productive for Russian literature of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, namely because of their paired relationship.

In the present article the nocturnal landscapes of some of the short stories from the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka and Viy from the Mirgorod cycle, are reconsidered, thus analysis is focused on the depiction of the Evil and the author’s attitude to the metaphysical background of this problem. The scrutiny is prompted by a few groups of questions: 1. what sort of poetic principles regulate the depictions of Ukrainian landscapes and the relationship between man and the ’scenery including him’ in N. V. Gogol’s early works? 2. how do a great variety of elements taken from different traditions cross each other at one point, such as the Bucolic (pastoral) poetry, clichés of Romanticism, folkloric archetypes and the author’s own, independent artistic means? 3. what is hidden behind the apparent Dualism of the Good and the Evil in Gogol’s early works? how do elements of Romanticist Weltanschauung and the traits of Evangelic (paskhal’naya) Aesthetics co-exist? With these questions traced down, the function of the multifoldness of the Gogolian prose can get verified alongside with identifying a close relationship between text and subtext. According to the approach of the author of the present article, the research into the ‘literary appearance’ of Gogol’s early works may reveal the various stages in the development of the writer’s artistic idea.

The article analyzes the changes in the poetics of the poem by M. Yu. Lermontov The Cliff (1841) in the creative history of text. Based on the comparison of the draft and the faire copy of the poem, the poet’s path to creating an artistic image of value is reconstructed. A special place in the analysis of the dynamic poetics of The Cliff is given to the capture of changes in the details of space through which the poet joins the feelings of the natural world with human ones, thereby creating a projection of his own spiritual world. The motives for meetings, breakups, loneliness, anxiety and game occupy an important place in the evolution of the text from the draft to the fair copy. The article reveals the epistemological meaning of their manifestation in the text at different stages of its creation. The meaning of the personification in the poem The Cliff is to reveal the existential paradox associated with the fact that the ideal of a perfect person is a combination of a sensitive soul, understanding of the truth of heavenly dispassion and longing for the unity of earth and sky. “The Poetics of the Visible” is one of the signs of the Lermontian style and represents the spiritual world in natural images.

The article regards the evocation of sobornost' (conciliarism) as a phenomenon of Orthodoxy in Leskov’s chronicle The Cathedral Clergy (Soboryane). The author emphasizes Leskov’s manner to poeticize Orthodox dogmatic teachings and the ways of their artistic presentation. By depicting clergy and its religious characters as part of the ideal modes of Russian life Leskov aims at refocusing readers’ attention on God-centered mind inherent in Russian literature of the 11th–16th centuries. A five-part structure of the chronicle is aligned with Stargorod’s five-domed Cathedral. Leskov prefers patericon as an inner form associated with its temple and liturgical plots, motives and images. The structure of Leskov’s patericon is notable for its iconographic patterns and symbols — the trend which makes The Cathedral Clergy (Soboryane) a chronicle poem. By poetizing “an old Russian fairy tale” Leskov seems to restore Slavonic ornamental script as the main principle of his writing which is symbolized in “knitting pins” depicted in The Cathedral Clergy (Soboryane). Along with the focus on verbality and Orthodox fables Leskov poetizes the Holy Scripture. New Testament (the Gospel according to St. John in particular) seems to be central “hagiographic writing” related to Stargorod Trinity. The moment of truth for Leskov’s character (who is regarded as a christian) has to do with internal eventivity when a person finds himself in front of God’s face rather than with external one regardless of pressing social challenges of the latter.

The article deals with the history of studying Christian images and motifs in the novel of Fedor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment. The novel’s conflict and the image of the main character for a long time have had different, often directly opposite, interpretations — first of all, in the matter of Raskolnikov’s repentance and his spiritual rebirth. The subject of the research is the resurrection as the central theme of the novel Crime and Punishment. Special attention is paid to the analysis of lexical variants “voskresenie” and “voskreshenie”, the first of which belongs to Dostoevsky, and the second, one applicable to Raskolnikov, is traced in scientific literature on the novel. The overview of various research points of view is accompanied by an analysis of the novel’s draft and printed texts. This review allows carrying out a detailed textual comparison with the biblical sources of the theme of the resurrection and identifying the author’s position in this work. The text of the novel indicates that its author is focused on the key ideas of Russian Orthodox culture and the “Easter” plot of the gospel narrative.

In modern literary studies the discussion continues about the revision of the traditional concept of Chekhov’s story Vanka by I. A. Esaulov. The researcher rejects the naive and empirical interpretation that is inherent in most interpretations, and reveals the genre features of a Christmas story. A common place in the works of his followers was the analysis of the poetics of genre, the attributes of a holiday chronotope, the invisible presence of Christ, the role of the story’s hero in the artistic world of the work. In school interpretations of the story, the Christmas miracle is denied on the grounds that it occurs in a child’s dream, but the artistic dream is as real as any other “real” event in the work. In the poetics of the Christmas story, the impossible is possible, the miracle is genuine: grandfather Konstantin Makarych reads a letter from his grandson. Vanka carefully prepared himself for the implementation of his plan. He had found out how to send the letter, prepared the paper, wrote it, and found the nearest mailbox. It worked out well. By sending a letter “to my grandfather’s village”, Vanka did an act that determined his future fate. He was never the same. The miracle, whether it happened in a dream or in reality, transformed the hero.

The paper attempts to substantiate the opinion of Professor I. A. Esaulov about the special “spirit” of Russia present in the urban space of the ancient provincial Yelets. The analysis uses the song lyrics of local poets of the early twentieth century, published in 1996 in the almanac Yeletskaya byl. The author comes to the conclusion that the Yelets poets in their works conveyed the unique flavor of their native land by means of contamination of the main cultural codes of the Yelets text — Yelets Orthodox, Yelets merchant, Yelets — a city of military glory. Local mythology played a major role in the formation of the Yelets text of culture. The appearance of the mother of God at Yelets to Khan Tamerlane, after which there was a miraculous escape from the ruin of Moscow and all Russia, became a “starting” event for the perception of Yelets as a sacred city under the patronage of the mother of God. The widespread use of Orthodox symbols in the song lyrics about Yelets emphasizes the predominance of the religious and spiritual component over the visual and secular landscape of the city.