A Story Cutty Sark by I. A. Efremov: The Specifics of the Correlation of Documentary and Artistic Principles

Abstract

The article studies the specifics of the correlation of documentary and artistic principles based on the material of Ivan Efremov’s story Cutty Sark. Comparison of the 1943 and 1957 editions of the story allows us to state that the text is “constructed” for the implementation of certain author’s intentions. In particular, the second edition “weighs down” the documentary beginning of the text, but it creates the illusion of documentality, the effect of verisimilitude. The perfection of the sailboat and the history of its existence become a source of reflection for the author about art, about expediency as a result of an evolutionary process that harmonizes the ratio of form and content. A comparison of the Ephraim story with a scientific source ‒ the book of the shipbuilding historian J. Campbell ‒ leads to the identification of a certain intentional author’s strategy. The distortion of the factual basis in the storyline of the story emphasizes Efremov’s desire to derive a general “law” (formula) of beauty and immortality and apply this law to every kind of creativity. The idea of a highly artistic, “wonderful” creation is realized at all levels of the text: the language of the story is replete with visual and expressive means; the name of the sailboat is played out in the context of Robert Burns’ poetics; the principle of sevenfold is used. Thus, the story about the clipper Cutty Sark, far from documentary authenticity, becomes the embodiment of a beautiful fate and good luck achieved due to the balance of form and content in the sailboat. The specificity of the correlation of the documentary and the artistic in the story under study allows us to speak about the author’s strategy formed, which then passed into novel creativity, as well as about the originality of the writer’s philosophical and aesthetic views.