Russian Classical Literature Research Articles

THE EKPHRASTIC CODE OF “THE PYRAMID”, A NOVEL BY LEONID LEONOV

The purpose of this article is to study the transformation of plots and motifs of visual art in “The Pyramid” (1994), the last novel by L. Leonov. The authors take a closer look at various types of ekphrasis: mimetic, unattributed and zero type. The theoretical framework for the analysis of the novel’s narrative space in ekphrastic terms includes the works of L.G. Geller, N.V. Braginskaya, J. Heffernan and other Russian and foreign philologists. Based on the idea of the dialogical nature of the concept of “ekphrasis,” the authors of the article consider the ekphrasis of the “The Pyramid” in a broad sense, as a means of concentrating the artistic, visual and philosophical context, inherent in the very nature of interaction between different types of art. The hermeneutic method is used achieve the set objectives, allowing to reconstruct the meanings of the ekphrastic fragments of the novel in the context of the phenomena of the global and Russian culture. Along with the alternation of dialogues and monologues of the implicit author and characters, direct and modified pictorial allusions are Leonov’s leading methods of text generation. Inheriting the traditions of Russian classical literature that tends to inexpressible, the writer integrates images of spatial arts, architecture, and painting into the text of the literary work. The narrative principles of “The Pyramid” are largely determined by the correlation of the author’s reflexive thought with precedent phenomena, the symbolic content of paintings by P. Brueghel, I. Repin, V. Perov, A. Durer’s engravings, temple frescoes, Russian icon painting. This allusive series is contingent on Leonov’s aesthetic preferences. It is on this basis that the ekphrastic code of the work is formed. It expresses the semantic and poetic harmony of the visual and verbal principles of the author’s thinking.

The Multiplicity of the Foundations of Russian Classical Literature

В статье рассматривается ряд идейных, социальных, этических, эстетических основ, на которых возникали явления русской классической литературы. Такие основы детерминировали содержание и форму литературных явлений. Творчество Карамзина, Пушкина, близких к ним писателей развивалось на основе усвоения европейского и русского материала, что получило форму культурного персонализма. На границе этой основы создавались произведения Боратынского, Тютчева. Впоследствии произошла смена основ. Тенденции критицизма, социальной проблемности, негативизма стали преобладающими. Лермонтов отменил пушкинскую меру человека и перешел к гиперболизации личности в самосознании поэта и в лирическом «я». Основа творчества Гоголя была расколота на две части. На первой части создавались произведения украинской тематики. На второй части вырастали петербургские повести и «Мертвые души». Здесь творчество автора управлялось социально-антропологическим критицизмом. Лесков в эпоху кризисов, идейной борьбы не нашел твердых основ для своего мировоззрения и творчества, оказался в сильной зависимости от текущих событий и влияний. Это породило внутреннюю и внешнюю конфликтность, стилевые деформации. Тенденции 1860-х – 1870-х годов привели Достоевского к глубоко этической и философской проблематизации человека в главных его романах. В творчестве Чехова нашли отражение тенденции негативизма конца девятнадцатого века.

On the specifics of a contemporary film interpretation of village prose: Brothers and Sisters by F.А.Abramov — Two Winters and Three Summers by T.R.Esadze

The author focuses on the recent film adaptation of the iconic work of village prose — the novel tetralogy Brothers and Sisters by Fyodor Abramov. Teimuraz Esadze’s TV series Two Winters and Three Summers (2014), which was shown on Russia 1, is considered as a part of a large-scale process that sociologist Boris Dubin has called reconciliation with the Soviet past (an important symptom of this process was a wave of film adaptations of Soviet classics in the second half of the 2000–2010s). Insisting that Abramov’s novels are classics of Russian litera ture, Esadze sought to extract from them, first, relevant formulas of collective identity, and second, explanatory models capable of shedding light on social processes in late- and post Soviet society. In the article, the way the director uses the conceptual apparatus and imagina tive and rhetorical system of village prose is interpreted as an attempt to reanimate the critical discourse of late-Soviet neopochvennichestvo in new conditions. The article examines the am bivalent strategy of Esadze’s TV series, on the one hand, oriented toward a precise reproduc tion of Abramov’s text, and on the other hand, taking into account the narrative and figurative logic of the TV series, usually addressed to a mass audience. The article concludes that such a strategy has a low analytical and reflexive potential, depending on the generalized media image of a Russian village, internalized through literary, film- and television representations, collective (family) or personal memories.

Поэтика холода и бестиарий в романе Донны Тартт «Тайная история»

This article deals with the problem of reception of Eastern Europe in Donna Tartt's novels as the first attempt to further studies. The material of the writer's first novel, The Secret History, highlights motifs related to the semantics of cold (winter, blizzard, pallor), oppositions of “North” and “South” (both in the plot of the novel and in the names of the characters), and bestiary symbols (associations with a dog, a rabbit, a bird, and deer hunting) in the plot, and onomastics of The Secret History. According to O.M. Freudenberg, the significance expressed in the character's name and, consequently, in their metaphorical essence unfolds into an action that constitutes a motif: the characters do only what they semantically mean. The influence of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis on the formation of the named complex of motifs (and the antique background of the story) is obvious; however, in the perspective of the following Donna Tartt's novels, these motifs are also included in the Eastern European text described by the American historian Larry Wolff in his work Inventing Eastern Europe (1994): with obligatory coldness (remoteness/detachment), savagery (animality), sensuality, ambivalence (up to inversions), theatricality, a mixture of attraction and frightening. The Secret History mentions two classics of Russian literature, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, which allows us to note: the emerging “Eastern European” associations are not accidental. The motifs of cold and bestiary symbolism are also important in Tartt's second novel, The Little Friend (2002). However, in her third novel, The Goldfinch (2013), a secondary character Boris Pavlikovsky appears, connected by his fate with Russia, Poland, and Ukraine. This image will ultimately concentrate the considered motifs and symbols. However, the “East European” layer, of course, is only one of the significant semantic fields of The Secret History: associations with ancient mythology, the Elizabethan theater, and modern literary context (for example, the genre of a university novel) are also important. Nevertheless, in Tartt's first novel, methods and approaches are outlined, which manifested themselves more clearly in the following works - the more important it is to localize and track the development of motifs caused by an obvious interest in Eastern European culture and literature.

Диалог о душевном и духовном: Н. В. Гоголь и святитель Игнатий (Брянчанинов)

The article examines the review of St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) about N. V. Gogol’s book «Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends» in the light of the categories of the soul and the spiritual. According to Gogol, literature should perform the same task as the works of spiritual writers – to enlighten the soul, to lead it to perfection. This is, to his mind, the only justification for art; its purpose is to serve as an invisible step to Christianity. In the Christian trichotomy «body – soul – spirit», culture and literature belong to the sphere of the soul. A peculiar result of the correspondence dialogue between two outstanding representatives of Russian culture, classics of Russian literature, can be the words of the New Martyr Archpriest John Rapture that such creators as Gogol, in their meaning in the history of the word, are similar to the holy fathers in Orthodoxy.

Чеховский контекст в «Сентиментальных повестях» Михаила Зощенко

Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Sentimental Tales are organized as a pyramid where each level is consistent and connected with the previous ones and with Russian classic literature. One of the writers who most influenced Zoshchenko was Anton Chekhov. Their creative similarity is manifold: the poetics of daily life, the image of the little man they wrote about, the lyrical humor, the existential problems they raised. The present study provides a comprehensive analysis and an intertextual comparison of M. Zoshchenko’s and A. Chekhov’s poetics. The paper aims to identify how Zoshchenko employs and transforms Chekhov’s principle of discovery story and to determine the meaning-forming functions performed by intertexts. The analysis revealed that M. Zoshchenko’s Sentimental Tales are to a great degree based on Chekhov’s discovery story genre. The theme of sudden insight, the it seemed versus it turned out compositional principle, existential problems, man-in-a-case complex continue the literary succession and offer new opportunities for the interpretation of Zoshchenko’s prose. Characters created by Zoshchenko represent the average intellectual type of the last century. The tragedy lies in the fact that their world no longer exists, and fate is irreversible, thus the intellectuals become senseless martyrs, victims of the change of epoch. Whether the characters are aware of this problem or not, being the subjects of orientation in reality, they inevitably plunge into a dead end of cognition of being. Consequently, fears, loneliness, lack of understanding, perplexity, disunity, communication failure acquire depth in M. Zoshchenko’s tales. The paper evidently demonstrates the authors sympathy for intellectuals he writes about. Existential pathos, eternal powerlessness of the thought and action, pathos of the impossibility of returning to the past life, and fear of the unknown future, constitute the inner issues of Sentimental Tales and raise the stories to the philosophical level.

О культуре в контексте российской истории

From time to time, there is a continuing polemics about the nature and destiny of Russian culture. Is it possible to speak of Russian culture as a homogeneous, unified whole or, as Yuri Lotman stated, history of Russian culture sees itself as a chain of explosions? Really, Russian culture has often been referred to as a culture of explosions, that is to say, of discontinuity and abrupt rifts. The question arises, can Russian culture be characterised as culture of discontinuity, or has there always been a solid kernel which continues to drive it forward, giving a common ground to the social being of the people? In the opinion of the author, it is possible to explain this phenomenon only in the context of Russian history. Every turn of Russian history was accompanied by a great cultural upheaval, and caused fierce cultural and historical debates, often with appeals and real actions to deny or re-write the past of country. As examples we can recall the drastic modernization turn to the West by Peter the Great or the post-revolution desire to do away with classical Russian literature at the dawn of Bolshevist power or the post-Soviet attempts to cross out the Soviet period in history and culture after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The very uniqueness of Russian history was, according to Yuri Lotman, «the everacting factor, which then spontaneously and unconsciously to the culture, openly and even emphatically determines the way of its development». The same phenomena can be observed in Russia today, when our culture is facing the complexities of the modern world, which are due to the ambiguous effects of globalization, technological changes in everyday life (so called digitalization), which leads to a significant reformatting the social consciousness and the degradation of many religious and ethic values. It seems that Russian society (and culture as its integral component) was again at a crossroads, faced at the turn of XX – XXI centuries with the threat of change of the civilizational vector of development, so the search for optimal forms of social life remains a pressing issue on the agenda. The author offers some reflections on the fate of culture in the context of the dramatic upheavals of the Russian history.

Восприятие русской литературы в чешской периодике 1920-х гг. (журнал «Розправы Авентина»)

The article examines the perception of Russian literature by the Czech literary criticism of the liberal-democratic political orientation from the magazine Rozpravy Avenitna in the 1920s. For this ideological direction, the selection of authors of modern Russian literature was made according to the criteria of closeness to European culture and the continuation of the traditions of Russian classics (I.G. Erenburg), while writers from the ideologically opposite camp were given a negative assessment or were not noticed at all (V.V. Mayakovsky). Some writers, in turn, were “torn apart” by the opposing camps, attributing their views to them (S.A. Yesenin, E.I. Zamyatin). Classical Russian literature was also presented with elements of bias; there was a rapturous attitude towards F.M. Dostoevsky, N.V. Gogol, it was their traditions that were emphasized in the work of modern Russian writers, while reviews about A.N. Ostrovsky were cool, and N.A. Nekrasov wasn’t touched on at all.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in Turkey: History of Translations

The article is devoted to the review of the history of translations of Fyodor Dostoevsky into Turkish. Currently, Dostoevsky is one of the most popular foreign writers in Turkey, and according to the Turkish book market, one of the most purchased authors. By decision of the Ministry of Public Education, since 2004, the works of the Russian classic have been included in the recommendatory part of the school curriculum, so it is difficult to find a person inTurkey who would not read Dostoevsky. The history of Dostoevsky’s translations into Turkish evolved in a special way: back in the late 19th - early 20th century there were none, since the Department of Russian Language and Literature in Turkey first opened in 1935, but the first translations appeared only in the 1920s and performed from French. However, subsequently the popularity of the writer grew so much that absolutely all of his works were translated into Turkish, and some even several times. Classical Russian literature had a special influence on Turkish literature of the 20th century, and Dostoevsky’s works are the most important literary basis for their own work for many Turkish writers. For example, the recently translated into Russian novel “The Idiot” by the American writer of Turkish origin Elif Batuman, who was born and raised in the United States, as well as the novel by the young prose writer Burhan Sonmez “Istanbul. Istanbul”. Despite the late appearance of Dostoevsky’s works on the Turkish book market and late acquaintance with the Turkish reader, Dostoevsky became one of the most popular and beloved Russian writers among Turks of almost all ages (which is confirmed by the publication of Dostoevsky’s works in an adapted form for children). The authors of the article analyzed the history of translations of Dostoevsky’s novels into Turkish and came to the conclusion that the appearance of a large number of translations is explained not only by the great popularity of the Russian language and culture in modern Turkey, and not only by the cinematic popularity of Dostoevsky all over the world, but also by a high reader demand for his texts, since Dostoevsky’s works meet the cultural and moral needs of modern Turkish society.

Рецензия на книгу: Fublishing in Tsarist Russia: A History of Print Media from Enlightenment to Revolution / ed. By Y. Tatsumi, T. Tsurumi. London: Bloomsbury academic, 2020. 280 p.

The monograph is dedicated to the broad topic of the development of printing and publishing in Russia in the 18th - early 20th centuries. The study is not generalizing: this task is too complex and multifaceted. The authors touched upon different and at the same time interrelated subjects, some of which were practically not previously investigated. The reviewer notes that the project is based on Japanese historians and literary critics, which once again shows the productive work of Japanese historiography of late imperial Russia. Nine chapters of the monograph are divided into three parts according to the key periods: XVIII-XIX, XIX-XX centuries. and the eve of the 1917 Revolution. At the same time, thematic blocks are visible in each part. The first focuses on the Russian language and literature during the period of their transformation into a part of world culture. Y. Toriyama highlights the activities of the Society Striving for the Translation of Foreign Books created by Catherine II. A.I. Reitblat draws attention to the formation of the very concept of Russian classical literature. H. Kaizawa makes an attempt to rethink the “reactionary” 1880s, noting the importance of this period for the development of Russian literature, recognition of its importance and influence in Russia and around the world. The second part focuses on the development of the press of the peoples of the empire and the role of foreigners. The importance of the latter is noted by Y. Tatsumi, who speaks about several immigrants from Poland and Germany who managed to create large publishing firms in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. T. Inoue analyzes in detail the influence of the Russian press on the national identity and representation of the Kalmyks. D. Ross tells about the development of newspapers and magazines in the Tatar language, and A. Sakurama about the publishing activities of the baptized Tatars. Finally, the third part focuses on the impact of the 1905 Revolution and World War I on print and publishing. M. Stockdale examines in detail the period of 1914-1918, noting the importance of the press in the interest of Russian society in the events on the fronts of the war. T. Tsurumi briefly describes the situation and development of the Zionist press in Siberia and Chinese Harbin on the eve and during the Revolution and the Russian Civil War. On the whole, the monograph leaves the impression of a thorough work, in which important and interesting plots, though often poorly covered in historiography, are raised. Perhaps, there is a lack of a more detailed analysis of the development of the press during the revolutionary period, but this does not reduce the merits of the book, a rare example in modern historiography of late imperial Russia. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Развитие советско-японских литературных связей во второй половине 1940-х – первой половине 1980-х годов

Relevance. The literature of Russia had a significant impact on the culture of Japan, allowing the Japanese reader to get in touch with the secret of the Russian soul. The study of Soviet-Japanese literary ties makes it possible to identify the ideological foundations of nations that bring them together. Literary interaction between Japan and the USSR in the post-war period was traced by researchers in fragments. At the moment, it is necessary, using archival documents, as well as Japanese periodicals, for the first time introduced into scientific circulation, to turn to the study of Soviet-Japanese literary relations in the post-war decades. The purpose of the study is to determine the forms of mutual penetration of Japanese and Russian literary cre-ativity in the 1940-1980s. Objectives: to reveal the contribution of the subjects of literary interaction to the development of Soviet-Japanese literary ties, to study the mechanism of literary interaction between the influence of two cultures. Methodology. The comparative-historical and chronological methods were used in the work. Results. In the study we talk about Japanese literary movements and public organizations, the contribution of Japan’s friendship societies to the development of literary ties between Russia and Japan. The article also explores the actions of American occupation authorities preventing the spread of Russian and Soviet literature in Japan in the early post World War II years. Furthermore, we trace the activity of the Japanese public who attempted to overcome the obstacles, consolidate and unite efforts for the cultural cooperation with the USSR. The author highlights the contribution of the Japan’s private press to the spread of Russian literature. Conclusion. The predominant forms of mutual penetration of Japanese and Russian literature were the translation of works of literature of one country into the language of another people, as well as the perception and reproduction in the literary work of writers of one people, ideas and meanings of texts by authors of another culture. The ideas embodied in the works of Russian classical literature often met with understanding in the souls of Japanese readers. This fact is demonstrated by theatrical performances of plays by Russian writers and the reaction of the Japanese audience to them. Thus, the literary ties between the two countries gave rise to interaction in the field of theater and other areas, contributing to the proximity and closer contact between the two cultures.

Мотивы веры и безверия в лирике А.С. Норова 1820-х годов

The article is devoted to actual questions of religious literary criticism. The object of research is the literary process of the nineteenth century. The subject is A.S. Norov’s work. He is a Russian poet of the second circle of the literary process of the nineteenth century. The article contains descriptions of religious problematics and themes of the poem «The Temple», which is the translated version of the poem of A. de Lamartin. This research provides characteristics to religious and philosophical questions of the poem «The Temple». The target of the research is the characteristic of A.S. Norov’s work. Particular attention is paid to the theme of faith and disbelief. The scientific novelty consists of providing new facts about religious problematics of Russian classical literature.

Жажда апокалиптических вихрей и созидание нового мира: русская литература XX столетия — от «серебряного века» к эстетике советских лет

In the article, specific attention is paid to the factors that define the development of Russian literature at the most critical stages of the previous century. Especially, it dwells on the Russian revolution of 1917 and its most immediate consequence: creating Soviet Art. The author demonstrates that for many figures of Russian Modernism an orientation towards total social and cultural collapse was part of their aesthetic program. The Revolution mercilessly responded to this deep inner call of Russian culture. The response was received by the public in the shadow of the last book in the Bible: the Apocalypse. New Soviet literature, separated from the “bourgeois heritage” of the Silver Age, however, was deeply connected with its dystopias and phobias, catastrophic intuition and the expectation of the transformation of a Man and World where labor, science and technique should function as divine tools in the Epic Song of the Birth of New Universe. The most important stage in the process of the liberation of Russian literature from mythological constructions of Soviet avant-garde aesthetics was the Second World War. It rehabilitated a central meta-hero of great Russian classical literature, “a little person” debunked by Modernism.

ОБРАЗ КОТА КАК ДРУГОГО В РУССКОЙ ПОЭЗИИ: ОТ КЛАССИКИ XIX В. К «ОТТЕПЕЛИ» ХХ В.

The article is devoted to the culturological comprehension of the cat as a character and image of the XIX-XX century Russian poetry. It is noted that the most famous and firmly established in the Russian mentality cats enter the reading and, accordingly, the cultural experience of Russians in their childhood when they are introduced to classical Russian literature (A.S. Pushkin, the learned cat from the introduction to the poem Ruslan and Lyudmila» and the Russian liter-ary fairy tale (K. Chukovsky). The author specifies that even in the 19th century these animals were an inseparable part of the Russian literary landscape, but they did not play an important role there, being semi-animate characters of sorts for their masters (A. Fet). It is found out that some writers of the turn of XIX-XX centuries assigned supernatural abilities to them, recognizing the mysteriousness of these creatures and our inability to understand them (I. Bunin). In this historical period, Russian poets in general did not separate the cat from the animal world, which was opposed to the human world (Sasha Chyorny). The attitude towards cats changed fundamentally during the «thaw»: the poets of the Sixties saw in their behavior a degree of inner freedom and independence which they themselves were unable to achieve on the social and cultural level, but which they desired so much. (B. Akhmadulina, A. Voznesensky). The atti-tude toward animals, cats in particular, became for many a criterion of the human personal qualities and it was a sign of certain softening of mores in Soviet society (I. Brodsky). The article suggests and studies the development of the cat's image / character from a minor character being a part of the lyrical hero's environment, through positioning the cat as part of the animal world, to humanizing its image in XX century poetry and assigning to it the qualities of human beings, interlocutors and associates, on the one hand, and interpreting the cat as a creature involved in the mysteries of the Universe, on the other hand.

Methods of translation culture-specific vocabulary into English in translation of Russian classical literature (on the example of A. Chekhov’s stories)

Translating a text, especially when it comes to fiction, one of the main problems is to find appropriate and qualitative methods of translating culture-determined words. Therefore, a number of decisions made by the translator defines how a given text will be perceived by readers of a different culture. This article presents a comparative analysis of the culture-specific vocabulary of the original Russian text and the text of the translation, followed by the identification of vocabulary features given in the original text and the methods of its translation into English.

Prospects, Opportunities and Difficulties of Creating Digital Dostoevsky in Traditional Russian Orthography

The article considers the need to republish the texts of classical Russian literature in general, as well as the creative heritage of F. M. Dostoevsky in particular, in the author's orthography. The author analyzes the key cultural and technological obstacles on the path to drawing the attention of the public and the scientific community to the problem of insufficient number of books published in traditional orthography. A set of practices and solutions that contribute to changing the current situation in the long and short term is proposed. Based on historical experience, as well as the work of modern researchers in the field of textual studies, the socio-cultural functioning of traditional spelling in Russia at the present time is highlighted. This is the language in which the Russian classics were created. Rehabilitation and functioning of traditional spelling involves the capacity to write and publish your texts in scientific and business communication. It is necessary to encourage the use of traditional orthography in professional literary-critical and linguistic activities. Technical issues need to be addressed, in particular, the introduction of a new standard for the Russian keyboard layout, the development of information and reference services on the history of the Russian language, tools and technologies for creating electronic texts. Creating the digital Dostoevsky can help solve the problems of the variable use of traditional Russian writing.

<i>The Last Day</i> of creation. M. Naimy’s mystical manifesto

The article is devoted to the mystical manifesto The Last Day (1963) of the Lebanese novelist, playwright and journalist Mikhail Naimy (1889–1988). The author suggests that Naimy, under the spell of classical Russian literature, attempted an audacious experiment: by successfully combining the totality of concepts of Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man [ Son smeshnogo cheloveka] with the traditional mythologemes of Sufi poetry, this graduate of the Poltava theological seminary overcomes mystical imagery, and in doing so postulates human impotence in the face of the Nietzschean ‘eternal recurrence’ and the ineffable nature of true the ophanies. The article demonstrates the innovative character of The Last Day, a novel that stands apart from the works of other Pen League members: while Gibran’s The Prophet seeks to infantilise a religious myth, Naimy’s objective is to bring mythology back into the 20th-c. Middle Eastern literary discourse and reimagine it using the categories of contemporary existential philosophy. The study opens with a short biography, covering Naimy’s Russian and American periods.

Вербализация кинемы в лексикографии и художественном тексте (на материале русской и французской литературы XIX–XX веков)

This article analyses the verbalization of kinemas: the choice of ways and means of their verbal representation in literary texts and dictionaries. Russian -Russian and French-language literature of the 19th and 20th centuries of different genres (dramatic, epic (novels, novellas, short stories, detective stories, plays), as well as Russian-French explanatory dictionaries) were used as the material for the study. The authors used the following contexts: descriptions of verbal representations of kinemas, extracted from modern and classical Russian and French-language literature of the XIX–XX centuries. The analyzed material in lexicography allows us to draw the following conclusions: the frequency of verbalization of the kineme in the Russian language with the reference word "eyes"(250; 45%); in the French language, the most frequent are kinemas with the reference word "hand" (154; 34,2%). The study of modern and classical fiction gives grounds to state that in French texts the frequency of verbalization of kinemas containing a description of gestures is 40%, in Russian texts 30,7%. The most representative are complex RRCS in Russian fiction — 42,4%, and in French texts there is a clear predominance of verbalization of kinemas containing a description of facial expression — 44,2%. It should be noted that the national speech behavior of an individual is determined not only and not so much by his psychological mood and communication conditions, but by his belonging to a certain linguistic and cultural community, which has its own cultural space, cultural interior of the situation, and all this is consistently reflected in the literary text.

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Remediation of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Traditions. The Case of “Leviathan” and “The Golovlyov Family”

Andrei Zvyagintsev often emphasises the opinion that Russian culture originates from classic Russian literature, i.e. the works of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Platonov etc. Treating the director’s approach (expressed in many interviews) as a kind of justification the proposed paper focuses on the interpretation of Leviathan from the comparative point of view, adapting the traditions of Saltykov-Shchedrin, in particular those deriving from his novel The Golovlyov Family. The methodological foundation of the presented case study constitute the concepts of cultural memory of Aleida Assmann, Renate Lachmann and Astrid Erll, which find their common ground in treating literature as a medium through which culture is continually rewritten, retranscribed and renegotiated. The interpretation of the selected satirical aspects of eating and drinking activities found both in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s and Zvyagintsev’s works leads to establishing a new intertextual relationship in the domain of cultural memory and to revealing areas of cultural communication between different media, based on structural and symbolic parallels revealed in the literary and cinematic text.

Epic Novel: to the problem of liberating terms from pseudo-meanings

The article examines the concept of an epic novel – a special historical genre phenomenon that arose as a result of the successful implementation by Russian classics of the second half of the 19th century. The author discusses the pseudo-names that appeared in Soviet literary criticism due to its politicisation and ideologisation back in the 1920s –30s and she shows that the terms of epic novel and epopee novel were used at the indicated time for the sake of the Communist party tasks, but contrary to their true meanings. As noted in the article, this required a rejection of the traditions of Russian classical literature, a rejection of the genetic memory of the universal vision of the world and human inherent in the epic novel. Analytical comprehension of the polemics of literary critics of different generations made it possible to show that a number of researchers who rightly saw the problem, forgot to “rehabilitate” the above concepts and transferred the line of denial of Soviet ideology to the terms themselves. The author of the article explains the importance of using the concept of an epic novel in its true meaning, in relation to the voluminous works of Russian classical literature.