RUSSIAN CONTEXTS OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES MORICE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the influence of ‘Russian fashion’ on the work of the French symbolist Charles Morice (1860–1919), who in the 1880s participated in translations of F.M. Dostoevsky’s and N.A. Nekrasov’s writings into French. The methodological basis of the article is the combination of a historical and literary approach with the study of the essence of cultural clichés in the field of literary relationships (Russian literature — French literature). The article is built on the littlestudied facts of the life and work of Morice, undeservedly forgotten in modern literary criticism both in Russia and in France. The analysis of the actual connections of Morice with cultural mediators (translator Ilya Danilovich Halperin-Kaminsky, diplomat and novelist Eugène Melchior de Vogüé), and the general context of the perception of Russian culture in France in the last quarter of the 19th century, when Russian literature for the first time in history began to be perceived as a source of inspiration for French. Being greatly influenced by the ideas of Vogüé, developed in the book Russian Novel (1886), Morice sees in Russian literature a reflection of his mystical and social concepts. Religious searches of Tolstoy and especially religious and philosophical ideas of Dostoevsky were influential in the conversion of Morice to Catholicism. The article deals with cases of direct reception of both ideas about Russian literature and the work of individual writers (mainly Dostoevsky) in the literary books of Morice, as well as in his works, the unfinished novel The Lonely Spirit (1886) and the play He is Risen! (1911).