Abstract
While the myth and cult surrounding Pushkin are phenomena unique to Russian culture, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries both were prevalent in Central European literatures as well, albeit to a lesser extent and intensity. For example, within Central Europe Pushkin’s biographical myth has generated several literary sujets within the literary traditions of Hungary, Poland, or Serbia, for example. Once Pushkin’s works had been translated into the region’s national languages, some cultic manifestations surrounding the poet also appeared. My study unravels the exciting process in which a work by the Hungarian author, Gyula Krúdy, expropriates and rewrites the Pushkin myth, thereby placing this Russian national icon into a Central European cultural, historical and linguistic context. In contrast to the analytical methods generally applied to literary cult research, I argue that examining Krúdy underscores the possibility that some literary works require an approach based on poetic analysis, a technique not generally applied to literary cult research. It is my intent to trace the influence Pushkin’s cult had on Krúdy’s text via cultural poetics.
Highlights
While the myth and cult surrounding Pushkin are phenomena unique to Russian culture, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries both were prevalent in Central European literatures as well, albeit to a lesser extent and intensity
In my study I explore what happens to Pushkin, his figure and his collective of primary works as well as the secondary texts written about him as found in a Central European space, in its cultural, historical and linguistic environment as found in Gyula Krúdy’s novel, The Crimson Coach
With the writer and journalist, Casimir Rezeda as its protagonist, The Crimson Coach offers a unique opportunity for Krúdy to describe and utilize the trappings of a literary cult while simultaneously representing his concept of “Russianness.” Written in 1913 and set in the PestBuda at a time when it was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, this novel can be read as a unique rewriting of the Pushkin myth as a combination of the Pushkin biography and Pushkin’s Onegin
Summary
While the myth and cult surrounding Pushkin are phenomena unique to Russian culture, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries both were prevalent in Central European literatures as well, albeit to a lesser extent and intensity. “The Pushkin Myth and Cult in Central European Literature: Gyula Krúdy’s A vörös postakocsi [‘The Crimson Coach’] (1913).” Hungarian Cultural Studies.
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