Emigre Writers Research Articles

Representation of Russia in Autobiographical Prose about Childhood by A.N. Tolstoy and I.S. Shmelev

This study examines the uniqueness of representing the image of Russia as an integral part of the artistic worldview in the autobiographical prose about childhood by first-wave Russian emigrant writers. The research is based on A.N. Tolstoy’s novella “Nikita’s Childhood” and I.S. Shmelev’s novel “The Lord’s Summer.” Comparative-historical, historical-literary methods, as well as the principle of comprehensive analysis of the ideological and artistic content of the texts, are employed. It is established that the image of Russia encompasses representations of the Russian people, nature, history, and generations. Time takes on mythological features, with historical and epic time shaping the narrative movement. The spatial dynamics are constructed as a contrast between city and village, where nature is animated and spiritualized. The concept of home emerges as a significant spatial parameter. In the novel “The Lord’s Summer,” it is intricately linked with the image of the church and sacralized. The central spiritual component of the world is embodied in the living image of Christ. The image of Russia is intertwined with themes of loss, with Moscow symbolized as the heart of the Motherland — Holy Rus’. Childhood and Russia are idealized, imbued with idyllic characteristics, while the image of a bygone era carries a nostalgic hue.

Walizka, peron, wagon… Uchodźczy los we Wspomnieniach Nadieżdy Teffi

The first-wave Russian emigrants who left the country as a result of the October Revolution in 1917 and the civil war were united by a deep awareness of the loss of their roots and the need to preserve the memory of their former homeland and the tragic historical events that contributed to the exodus. Hence the huge popularity of the so-called “memory” literature among emigre writers and its diversity. The aim of this article is to include Memoirs of Nadezhda Teffi in the memoirs of the first wave of Russian emigration, dealing with the subject of the civil war and escape from Sovdepia. Typical distinguishing features of the reggee fate related to the category of memory were analysed, which include a suitcase, a platform and a wagon (similarly: a trunk, a harbor, a cabin). These attributes (except for a suitcase) did not attract the attention of researchers, although the plot of the work, which is the author’s subjective account, is largely focused around them. As a result, it was proved that they played various roles in the biographies of emigrants, reflecting new realities and social moods, often going far beyond their usual purpose or becoming symbols. This allows us to conclude that in her memoirs, Teffi combines the individual and collective dimension of remembering, because she shows a breakthrough moment in the history of the homeland from the narrator’s individual perspective through the details of everyday life, and is also part of the mission of Russian émigré literature by co-shaping the memory of the recent past.

The image of a rebel writer (based on the novels "The Revolt of Denis Bushuev" by S. S. Maksimov and "The Revolt of the Sunflower" by L.D. Rzhevsky)

The article examines the image of the writer in the novels "The Sunflower Rebellion" by Leonid Rzhevsky and "The Rebellion of Denis Bushuev" by Sergei Maksimov. The subject of the study is the poetics of the image of the writer in the works of major writers of the second wave of Russian emigration. Russian literature is based on the general problems of the novels, the similarity of the destinies of the main characters and the authors belonging to one direction of Russian literature of the XX century – the second wave of Russian emigration. Using the example of the fate of an emigrant writer and a writer of the metropolis, the uprising against the ideological restrictions dictated by the political regime is considered. Special attention is paid to the literary tradition of depicting the hero-creator at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as autobiographical and historical facts that influenced the transformation of the image in question in the work of second-wave emigrants. The methodological basis of the study is an integrated approach that includes biographical, historical, typological and comparative methods. The author's attention is focused on the conflict "artist-power", which is at the center of the novels "The Revolt of Denis Bushuev" and "The Revolt of the Sunflower". The novelty of the study is due to the introduction of previously little-studied material, and for the first time a comparative analysis of novels authored by representatives of the second wave of emigration is presented. As a result of the analysis, the following typological similarities were revealed in the depiction of hero-artists by S.S. Maksimov and L.D. Rzhevsky: the personal experience of the authors lies at the heart of the images of rebellious hero-creators; the main conflict of both works is the aggravation of contradictions between the writer and the authorities; this conflict underlies the creativity of the majority of emigrants of the second wave. Russian literature also proved that the depiction of the literary hero in the works of the second wave of Russian emigration continues the tradition of classical Russian literature in depicting the conflict between the artist and power, but emigrant creativity interprets it in a tragic way.

THE THEME OF THE CIVIL WAR IN CRIMEAN TEXT

The article analyzes the theme of the Civil War in Crimea in 1920 by the example of such works as the novel The Fall of Dair by A.G. Malyshkin, the novel The Sun of the Dead by I.S. Shmelev, the poem Perekop by M.I. Tsvetaeva and the novel The Beast from the Abyss by E.I. Chirikov. The purpose of the study is to identify the motives that reveal the mutually exclusive views of Soviet and emigre writers on what was happening in the 1920s in Crimea. In Malyshkin’s The Fall of Dair and Shmelev’s The Sun of the Dead, a contradictory image of the ‘new man’ of history is created, Malyshkin presents him as the creator of a new and wonderful life, while Shmelev views him as the destroyer of culture and civilization; in Tsvetaeva’s poem, a “Volunteer legend” is created, the poet’s sympathy for the Volunteer Army is expressed; and Chirikov in his novel reflects on the existential meaning of a person at a social turning point and objectively shows the destructive power of the Reds and the Whites. Therefore, in the prose of the metropolis and emigration of the 1920s, alternative approaches to understanding the truth - about the Civil War, about the revolution as the destruction of an established existence or hope for a brighter future -developed. The listed works reflect opposing attitudes of the authors to the “man of the masses”, “the new man of history”, “the coming Huns” and “the volunteers”. As a result of the analysis of the texts, it is concluded that the mutually exclusive views reflected in Crimean text are considered as complementary in the artistic development of the Crimean cataclysm of the early 1920s, in understanding the fullness of the truth about the Civil War. At the same time, the works address similar existential, ontological, and social issues.

Встречный взгляд: переписка Р. Роллана и И.С. Шмелева. К 150-летию И.С. Шмелева

The paper studies literary contacts of Ivan Shmelev (1873–1950) with the French writer, 1915 Nobel Prize winner Romain Rolland (1866–1944) in the 1920s. The author analyzes unpublished correspondence of the writers, including 3 letters from Shmelev and 2 response letters from Rolland. The content of the correspondence is connected with Shmelev’s desire to find in Rolland, who personified the “conscience of the world” for the writers of the Russian emigration, a like-minded person in understanding the tragedy that befell Russia in the wake of the October Revolution, which led to mass death, devastation and famine. Shmelev sent Rolland the German editions of his books “The Sun of the Dead” and “The Inexhaustible Chalice”. Rolland’s answers contain high praise of Shmelev’s work and sympathy for the emigrant writer who lost his homeland. However, complete understanding was not to be achieved: a representative of the left intelligentsia, Rolland reacted with no lesser sympathy to the experience taking place in the USSR in the “social and moral restructuring of humanity.” From criticism of the results of the October Revolution in 1921-22 Rolland, by the end of the 1920s proceeds to glorifying the social experiment of building a “new society” in the USSR, publishing congratulations to the Soviet people on the 10th anniversary of October in the Soviet press. This step of the writer was met with hostility by Shmelev and put an end to their correspondence. There was a final demarcation between Rolland and the writers of the Russian emigration, with whom he maintained literary contacts. Among them are not only Shmelev, but also I.A. Bunin and K.D. Balmont, who published open letters to a writer who took a pro-Bolshevik position, despite his earlier expressions of sympathy towards Russian emigrant writers.

Национальная самоидентификация героя-эмигранта в эмигрантской прозе Г. Иванова и Г. Миллера. Статья вторая: кризис творческой самореализации

The author compares the American prose writer Henry Miller’s novel Tropic of Cancer (1934) and the Russian poet Georgy Ivanov’s story Disintegration of the Atom (1938). The aim of the article is to compare the plot situations of the emigrant heroes’ self-identification in the aspect of the manifestation of their national and cultural identity in order to understand how the problem of national self-identification of a person of the modern era in emigration is aggravated. The second part of the article draws attention to the collision of creativity and the interpretation of art (literature) by the central characters. It is concluded that Miller and Ivanov agree on the idea of the crisis of culture and the dying of art in the situation of modernity. In the story of a hero, an aspiring writer, Miller shows the transformation of avant-garde ideas and the conformism of a contemporary artist. Miller’s central character appears as a spiritually integral person, capable of creative realization and capable of challenging a civilization stricken with cancer. Ivanov depicts a creatively sterile man-“atom”, unable to overcome the existential impasse in the crisis of modern civilization. Although in both works the heroes assert the highest value not of art, but of real life, sensuality, bodily passion, Ivanov’s hero cannot accept life and renounces it unlike Miller’s hero, who accepts himself and the world. The novel Tropic of Cancer is interesting in the aspect of imagology: it shows a number of images of Russian emigrants as perceived by an American hero. This is an American “view” of the Russian emigrant, different from the automyth of Russian emigrant writers (Georgy Ivanov). Geographically, Miller sees Russia as the most distant part of Europe. The dominant feature of Russians in Tropic of Cancer is irrationality (“crazy Russians”), but Miller, unlike Ivanov, captures both the pragmatism and conformism of Russian emigrants. The emigrant writer Boris, on the one hand, appears as a type of a European avant-garde artist; on the other hand, Russian roots are manifested in his aesthetics and attitude to the world. Boris turns out to be similar to the hero of Ivanov’s story, a creatively sterile person, immersed in the world of ideas, the break with which reflects the creative growth of the hero of Miller’s novel. A skeptical assessment of Russian idealism brings Miller and Ivanov closer together. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Symbolic-Semantic Originality Components of the Artistic World Model of the Story “Pilgrim” by Ivan S. Shmelev

The purpose of the article is to reveal the originality of the figurative and motivic structure of the story by Russian emigre writer of the first wave, Ivan S. Shmelev. Images and motifs are considered as significant components of the artistic model of the text, allowing to identify the author’s value systems and the specifics of the linguistic organization of the work. The novelty of the study lies in the consideration of the text from the point of view of its world-modeling specificity. To achieve the stated goal, comparative historical, biographical methods, and the method of descriptive poetics were used. The results obtained during the study showed that the figurative-motive system of the story is included in the Christian context. Significant worldmodeling components of the work are the Easter motif, motifs of “childhood”, joy, holiness, righteousness, crying, miracle, fabulousness, abundance, spiritual purity, simplicity, spiritual kinship, silence, death, trinity, the image of light. Special attention is paid to the image of the child, who is the leading world-modeling category in the text. The artistic model of the world of “Bogomolye” (“Pilgrimage”) is structured from the point of view of the characteristics of child’s worldview. The chronotope of the garden-paradise and the “holy road” become important world-modeling universals in the story. In “Bogomolye” (“Pilgrimage”) the reader is presented with an image of a “golden” happy childhood, an idyllic world filled with love and a feeling of spiritual kinship of everyone with everyone. Particular attention is paid to identifying the specific color scheme of the figurative system of the story, full of deep symbolism. Along with the image of the hero, the narrative structure of the work contains the image of the author, which brings a nostalgic tone to the text. At the end, the author’s understanding of the motive of death, which reflected the intensity of the writer’s spiritual quest, is substantiated. Keywords: Ivan S. Shmelev, story “Bogomolye” (“Pilgrimage”), artistic world model, image, motive, symbol, semantics.

Образ героини повести В. Яновского «Любовь вторая»: интертекст и автобиографический контекст

The article is devoted to a little-known story by the young emigrant writer V. Yanovsky “Love Second”. The author is known to the modern reader mainly by his memoir book “The Elysian Fields” (1983). However, he has a considerable artistic heritage, among which the analysed work takes one of the leading places. Thematically, it continues the plot line of homeless meaningless existence, which is topical for the young emigration, which connects it with the works of such authors as Gazdanov, Poplavsky, Felsen. Some fragments of the heroine’s search for a job are based on the biography of the writer himself. In this part of the plot, the influence of the “human document”, relevant to the poetics of the authors of the young emigration, is strong. However, unexpectedly Yanovsky turns his plot in the direction of the heroine’s discovery of the meaning of life, who discovers God through a sudden mystical experience. In this part, the plot is enriched with a new series of intertextual cross-relations, including the prose of L. Tolstoy, “The Book of My Life" by St. Teresa of Avila, Poplavsky’s novel “Apollo Bezobrazov”.

Quest for Identity in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry was one of thefamous novelists in Indian English Literature.The title “A Fine Balance” that Rohinton Mistry chose for his second book expressed, whether intentionally or not, his whole attitude towards the literary world. The distinguishing feature of Mistry’s humanism is the desire for societal harmony to prevail via the affirmation of individuality and the guarantee of one’s own existence. The four main protagonists in The Search for Identity come from diverse backgrounds, yet they work together as a cohesive unit because they all seek to establish their place in society. It is clear from the book that Rohinton Mistry did a good job of expressing his strong feelings of homecoming. Emigrant writers often feel a sense of loss due to the social and cultural nostalgia that accompanies their work. Many of these themes, such as homelessness, separation, multiple migrations, and identity, are inherently precarious due to their relation to and construction within specific socio-cultural contexts. The characters’ aspirations and objectives are entangled with both optimism and pessimism on the present state of the world. In his writings, Mistry captures the universal humanist and realist conflict that most individuals experience. The primary objective of this article is to portray the contemporary issues faced by the characters

«Маньчжурская принцесса» А. Хейдока и «Весна в маленьком городе» Сяо Хун: сопоставительный анализ

<p>The article compares two works — «Manchurian Princess» by Russian emigrant writer A. Heidok and «Spring in a Small Town» by Chinese writer Xiao Hong, which were created in approximately the same epoch and reproduce the same place of action — the north-east of China. Heidok’s work appealed to the mystical ideas of Chinese culture (the idea of reincarnation); Xiao Hong’s work was deeply influenced by Russian classical literature. Both stories present a story of tragic love, which breaks the traditions of a conservative society and radically changes the lives of the characters. The meaning of the characters’ lives lies in returning to the true nature of man — love, because only in it does existence find meaning; at the same time, the theme of love is closely intertwined with the theme of death. In both works there is an intersection of different epochs — the past and the present; at the same time, it is the past that determines the course of events of the present. Specific situations of the characters’ lives are revealed in a broad historical and cultural space, which allows the author to put before the readers the most important ethical and philosophical problems. A. Heidok’s story shows how life in the previous birth influences the actions of a person in subsequent births; in Xiao Hong’s story «the past» is the power of tradition, which does not allow a girl to get an education and determine her own destiny.</p>

The Mythologeme “Home” in the works of Russian Emigration writers of the Second Wave (using the example of R. Berezov’s works).

The article is devoted to the representation of the image of home, one of the dominants of Russian culture, in the works of émigré writers. In the literature of the Russian emigration, it acquires a special tragic character and is interpreted differently by representatives of different waves. However, one can single out typological features that unite émigré writers: autobiographical narrative, nostalgic motifs in the depiction of Russia, apocalyptic perception of the loss of connection with home. The analysis of the work of Rodion Berezov, a representative of the second wave, reveals the main ways of implementing the mythologeme in the prose of post-war emigration and allows us to trace the transformation of the perception of the loss of home by emigrants of different waves. The novelty of the study is due to the lack of literature studies of the second wave of emigration in the context of this issue.

НОВЕЛА В. ДОМОНТОВИЧА «СПРАГА МУЗИКИ» В АСПЕКТІ ІНТЕРДИСКУРСИВНОЇ МЕТОДОЛОГІЇ

The current postnonclassical methodological situation draws attention to interdisciplinary practices in literary texts analysis, revealing a significant number of “interdiscursive configurations”. The purpose of this research is to analyze the short story “Thirst for Music” by one of the great intellectuals of the Ukrainian emigration, Viktor Petrov-Domontovych (1894–1969), in the aspect of interdisciplinary methodology. The research tasks are to outline the specifics of interdiscursive methodology and interdiscursive analysis of a literary text, in order to identify V. Domontovych’s novel interdiscursive codes. The chosen short story determines the author’s idiom: biographism, fragmentation, intermediality, intertextuality. Accordingly, the leading methodology of the study is interdiscursivity. It involves the use of biographical, hermeneutical, intertextual, and intermedial research methods. The study is based on the research of M. Foucault, V. Cherniavska, Y. Shevelev, I. Ilyin and others. The work outlines a set of discourses important for the general concept of the novel and evaluates their interaction in the discursive polyphony of “Thirst for Music”: biographical (a fragment of Rilke’s biography), intermedial (music, sculpture), intertextual (Rainer Maria Rilke’s Stories of the Good God, Rilke’s correspondence with Magda von Huttingberg), and architectural (Biographical novella fragment). This example convincingly proves that postmodernist methodology is productive in analyzing the literature of another cultural epoch, in this case, the modernist one. The article under studies focuses on the influence of postmodernism on literary methodology in terms of the concept of interdiscursivity. The purpose of the interdiscursive analysis is the reconstruction of all the discursive layers involved (hidden) by the author. The methodology suggests the identification of a broad range of significant bibliographical, cultural, artistic (intermedial and intertextual) architextual insertions and allusions. Through decoding the “interdiscursive configurations”, the article lays particular emphasis on the bibliographical, intertextual, intermedial, and narrative specifics of the text by the Ukrainian emigrant writer Victor Petrov-Domontovych “Thirst for Music”. It also reveals the intertextual connection of V. Domontovych’s story with Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Stories of God”, as well as Rilke’s correspondence with Magda von Huttingberg. The imagological portrait of Rilke, reconstructed from the short story, may be regarded as the essential interpretant of “interdiscursive intertextuality”. The interdiscursive analysis makes it possible to trace up directly the peculiarities of the writer’s (Rilke) relationships with his real reader (M. von Huttingberg), as well as to outline the discursive nature of story’s architextuality and its genre marking, both of which form the respective horizons of expectations. A particular attention is drawn to Rilke’s poem “Music” (1918), which condenses a wide range of themes articulated by Domontovych in his short story “Thirst for Music” - music as a special metalanguage and a timeless format of music capable of transmitting human feelings. Therefore, the musical key to reading this novel can be Domontovych’s consonance with Rilke. The “fragmentary integrity” of the short story is substantiated by means of the fragmentary, gender marked narrative, the constellation of passages, subject detail, specific phonetic coloring, tropology, and artistic syntax, all these give the prose text the rhythmic parameters of lyrics. Through synesthesia, the author creatively interprets Rilke’s literary method, leaving some figurative and musical “traces”. The veiled compositions of Handel, Bach, Schumann, and Scarlatti are seen as musical ekphrasis. The author resorts to a kind of “game” with the reader, leaving intertextual and intermedial discourses for him to decode. In this way, several receptive channels of the reader’s imagination are simultaneously activated, including visual (“seeing”), auditory (“hearing”), and kinesthetic (“feeling”).

“Nothing but My Own Whole Body”: Revisiting Radical Haiku Through Violet Kazue de Cristoforo’s Life and Work

ABSTRACT This essay reflects upon the continuing significance of the freestyle Kaiko haiku movement documented by poet, editor, and translator Violet Kazue de Cristoforo in the anthology May Sky: There Is Always Tomorrow (1997). A vivid, rule-breaking, highly social form that thrived in specialized clubs, Kaiko haiku began in Tokyo in the early 1900s and was brought by young emigrant writers to California, where it was transformed and almost erased by Japanese American incarceration. The essay revisits the poetic form and de Cristoforo’s literary work and activism in light of settler-colonialism, ecological change, and the essayist’s experience living in California’s Central Valley.

ЛEКСИКА НА ПОЗНАЧЕННЯ РЕЛІГІЙНИХ ПОНЯТЬ В РОМАНІ «РАЙ» В. БАРКИ

Письменник-емігрант В. Барка підтверджує, що в роки, в які він жив і працював, не було змоги через культурно-релігійні, суспільно-політичні причини писати твори з християнською проблематикою в Україні, а лише за кордоном. Роман “Рай” В. Барки насичений релігійними номінаціями, які в статті диференційовано на різні лексико-семантичні підгрупи та проаналізовано. З’ясовано, що автор обстежуваного твору неодноразово ілюструє демонологічну лексику, вживає її на позначення злої сили та збагачує твір релігійними синонімійними та антонімійними номенами.

ВОКАТИВЫ КАК ФАКТОР КУЛЬТУРНО-ЯЗЫКОВОГО ПЕРЕНОСА

The article considers urgent linguacultural issues of inevitable pragmatic transfer in translingual literature, and namely, forms of speech etiquette typical of Russian addressing and referring. In the article, linguacultural transfer is analyzed on the material of books written by the emigrant writer E. Litman (collection of short stories ‘The Last Chicken in America’ and the novel ‘Mannequin Girl’). The article discloses such key concepts of the language of social interaction as social deixis, vocative, reference sign, and singles out forms of vocatives and reference, which are most common for the texts under study from the viewpoint of their sociocultural connotations (embodied culture) as well as their role in transferring the purport of works of translingual literature.

Vincentas i Andrius. Literacki dwugłos o Holokauście na Litwie

Vincentas and Andrius. Two Voices on Holocaust in Lithuania The main goal of this article is to analyse literary representation of Lithuanian responsibility for Holocaust in Lithuania in the novel of Sigitas Parulkis Darkness and Company (Polish edition 2020) in the context of modern Lithuanian history politics – especially the reception style of prose on the Jewish-Lithuanian relations and the politics of memory. Vital context is also provided by the novel Izaokas (written between 1960 and 1961) by the emigrant writer Antanas Škėma, which hasn’t been translated into Polish, yet which can be treated – as the author attempts to prove – as one of the crucial hipotexts of Darkness and Company. The comparative reading of both texts leads to the conclusion that – despite society’s expectations – Darkness and Company isn’t a “revisionist” work and it isn’t supposed to be mainly read from the ethical perspective, but rather from the epistemological and psychological one instead. This stands in contrast to Izaokas, where the reader’s attention is directed towards the sphere of ethics and metaphysics; while the main theme of Izaokas – which seems to be an interesting example of an experimental modernist novel – is memory, the postmodernist Darkness and Company focuses on post-memory.

“Silenced Generation”: South African Emigrant Writers and Their Fates (1950–1960s)

The article is devoted to the problem of emigration of writers from South Africa in the 1950s–1960s. Using the example of the fates of three South African writers – Peter Abrahams, Nat Nakasa and Arthur Nortier – the author raises the following questions: what were the reasons that forced the creative intelligentsia to leave their country? What was the state policy towards emigrants in the 1950s and 1960s? Why did emigration become an opportunity for some writers to gain political and creative freedom, while for others it became a path to self-destruction, loneliness and death? The problem of emigration and emigrant literature of South Africa is almost unexplored both in South Africa and in foreign historiography. However, the study of the fate of South African emigration sheds light on similar processes and problems in the history of other countries: the causes of emigration of intellectuals, the relations between writers and authorities, the problem of self-identification of representatives of various diasporas abroad, as well as the problem of intercultural and interracial dialogue both in literature and everyday life.

Художественная модель дома в романе И.С. Шмелева «Лето Господне»: опыт сопоставительного исследования

This article reveals the peculiarity of the embodiment of the artistic model of the House in the novel “The Summer of the Lord” by the writer of the Russian diaspora Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev against the background of the established literary tradition of the XIX century. In the concept of “happy childhood”, reflected in the novels “Childhood” by L.N. Tolstoy, “The Childhood Years of Bagrov-grandson” by S.T. Aksakov and chapter IX “Oblomov’s Dream” by I.A. Goncharov “Oblomov”, the image of the house is comprehended by the main spatial characteristic, actualizing the motives of security, love and warmth associated with the images of the family and surrounding people. The idyllic space and the cyclical nature of time determine the state of the world of childhood, which is doomed to destruction due to the loss of the child’s view of people’s actions and events. Following the established tradition, I.S. Shmelev in the novel “The Summer of the Lord” fills the stable motifs and images built by Russian literature of the XIX century with new content. In the author’s view, the happy childhood of the child is inscribed in the space of the native home, which acquires the sacred meaning of the Temple, consecrated by the presence of the living Christ. The model of the House in the work of the emigrant writer includes an image-a symbol of Russia — the gracious world of God, uniting all the inhabitants with the infinite and boundless love of Christ, forever lost in social cataclysms.

Про сповідь, написану серцем

The author analyzes the poetic and prose works of Natalia Zamulko-Dubushe (1948–2020). The Ukrainian emigrant writer, who has lived and worked in France since 1989, is the author of the Ukrainian-language poetry collection Storks of the Native Land (2004), prose books Alien Nation (2012), Rain Border (2018), and others. The aim of the article is to analyze the confessional beginning of Natalia Zamulko-Dubushe’s works. In order to comprehend the weight of the author’s personal experience in the poetic and prose narration, Valentyna Sobol compares the defining motives of the poetic and prose works of the writer. As a result of a comparative reading, the researcher draws a conclusion about the dominance of the autobiographical discourse of the entire creative work of the writer. It is shown how the motives of her poems resonate differently in prose each time. In fact, memory is the driving force in all emigration works. Returning mentally to her Ukrainian roots, the writer at the same time exposed herself as a person of the world.

"ПОЖЕЛАЕМ ДРУГ ДРУГУ НАДЕЖДЫ, ВОЗДУХА И ПЕРЕМЕН". ПИСЬМА Б.К. ЗАЙЦЕВА К Е.Д. КУСКОВОЙ (1928-1933)

For the first time letters from B.K. Zaytsev to E.D. Kuskova are introduced into scientific usage. The publication allows to clarify the details of the biographies of both correspondents. The letters illustrate Kuskova’s productive care of Russian emigrant writers who received scholarships from the “Russian Action” headed by the Czech Government. The correspondence contains estimates of the largest Russian emigrant newspapers “Vozrozhdenie” and “Poslednie Novosti” as well as their editorial policy. Some letters reflect the polemic of the two correspondents about the role of Maxim Gorky in the creation of the All-Russian Committee for Helping the Starving (Pomgol). Some details of the celebrations on the occasion of the presentation of the Nobel Prize to Ivan Bunin are also specified.