The Fate of a Poet in Russia: State Mythology and Reality (with Reference to A. P. Sumarokov’s Epistolary Works)

Abstract

This article considers the dramatic conflict between the official status of a poet in Russia during the Enlightenment in accordance with state mythology and the real attitude to servants of Melpomene with reference to A. P. Sumarokov’s epistolary works. Analysing Sumarokov’s correspondence with the powers that be (Chamberlain I. Shuvalov, Empress Catherine II), the author recreates the cultural, psychological, and biographical basis of the conflicts that emerged. The article explores the artistic and aesthetic component of Sumarokov’s epistolary works, showing itself through various uses of the French language (an appeal to European public opinion, an attempt to establish a friendship with a nobleman), as well as quotations from the playwright’s plays, references to the plots and characters of his works. Referring to the playwright’s conflicts with the Russian nobles, Count I. Chernyshev and P. Saltykov, the author examines Sumarokov’s strategies as an author aimed at protecting the honour and dignity of the Poet in the era when the mentality of the Russian aristocracy came into conflict with the basic postulates of the theory of natural law. Relying on M. Levitt’s concept of a ‘visual dominant’ in the cultural tradition of the Russian 18 th century, the author proves Sumarokov’s conscious transfer of stage visualisation techniques to epistolary texts in order to protect the high status of the Poet in Russia during the Enlightenment. Such an ethical-aesthetic attitude does not receive support from Empress Catherine II, whose literary policy from as early as the 1760s was aimed at cultivating ‘light literature’ and reasonable behaviour of the writer, who does not demonstrate rage or extravagant behaviour in his fight against other people’s vices.