Titles of Russian memoirs of the XVIII - early XIX century as a meta-textual element of the narrative

Abstract

The subject of the research presented in the article is the metatextual function of the titles of Russian memoirs of the XVIII – early XIX centuries. The object of the study is all known and published texts of Russian memoirs of the specified historical period. The author analyzes in detail in this aspect the memoirs of V. V. Golovin, I. O. Ostrozhsky-Lokhvitsky, I. G. Andreev, Y. P. Shakhovsky, I. I. Neplyuev, I. V. Lopukhin, M. V. Danilov, T. P. Kalashnikov, G. I. Dobrynin, P. S. Baturin, etc. authors. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the memoir title as a result of the author's reflection and the author's mark addressed to the reader, reflecting the tendency to individualize the narrative about oneself and the desire of the memoirist authors for a holistic understanding and literary formalization of the text of memoirs. The research methodology is based on the principles of comparative studies and comparative historical analysis. The corpus of the memoirs under study is placed in the general cultural context of the epoch, which allows us to talk about the principles of formation and development of Russian memoiristics in the XVIII century. The memoir titles reflect which aesthetic and value paradigm the memoirist was oriented towards when writing about his past. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time the memoir title is considered as the main element of the meta–text ensemble "title – preface – epigraph - afterword". The genre nomination necessarily present in the memoir title (notes, chronicle, novel, life, life) is understood as a sign of the memoirist's cultural and literary self-identification aimed at a potential reader. The article identifies the following trends: orientation towards the ancient Russian cultural and genre tradition, the influence of the educational and classicist paradigm and attitudes dictated by the influence of sentimentalism and the genre of the novel. A systematic analysis of more than fifty works of Russian memoiristics allows us to conclude that the defining role of the genre nomination in the composition of the memoir title is for the author to choose a narrative model, an angle of the image of events and characters, leitmotifs and principles of plot organization. Compilation and analysis of the repertoire of titles of memoir works of the XVIII – early XIX centuries allow us to conclude about the principles of formation and development of Russian memoiristics as a whole.