Izvestiya of Saratov University.
Philology. Journalism
ISSN 1817-7115 (Print)
ISSN 2541-898X (Online)

Literary criticism

“The Goat” by M. Zoshchenko and “The Overcoat” by N. Gogol: To the question of intertextual connections

Zoshchenko’s “The Goat” and Gogol’s “The Overcoat” have a strong intertextual connection. The quoted image of the “little man”, the plot, motif reminiscences, similar narrative peculiarities disclose the writers’ literary succession. In this article we will analyze the intertextuality of the writers’ prose on the example of “The Overcoat” and “The Goat”, and consider Zoshchenko’s transformation of Gogol’s plots, motifs; we will fi gure out what meaningful functions the intertexts are performing. The main results are summarized as follows.

French poems of Nikolay Gumilyov

Paris, regarded for centuries as the literary capital of the world, the literary ‘homeland of choice’, gave shelter (permanently or temporarily) to many great writers. Poets all over the world have dreamed of gaining access to the French reader; it has tacitly been considered a special stepping stone to global recognition. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the paths of many Russian poets crossed in Paris. It was there that Gumilyov met A. Tolstoy, M. Voloshin, A. Bely and others.

Psychological aspects of power in Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and The Light

The last novel of Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy is approached through the lens of the contemporary theory of power. As a historical novelist, Mantel opens up the mentality behind political and social forms of power under Tudor monarchy, the dominance of traditional medieval system and, in Cromwell’s attempt to create bureaucratic government, the emergence of power devoid of the coating of sacredness.

The problem of changing points of view in the novel Jacob’s Ladder by L. Ulitskaya

The article considers the change of points of view of the narrator and characters in the novel Jacob’s Ladder by L. Ulitskaya, which is characterized by polyphony and the combination of diff erent narrative situations.

Analysis of the Russian village prose and its place in the cultural space of China

In modern Russia it is widely believed that China has adopted all the best from the USSR: the ideas of the equality of citizens, the socialist structure of the state, the fi ght against corruption, cultural trends, trends in education. The Russian village prose has become part of the school curriculum of China, just as it has done in its homeland in Russia. Rustic prose is close in spirit to the bulk of the population of the Chinese provinces. The ideas and trends that concern the Russian people could not leave the citizens of China indiff erent.

Pestel vs. Pestel: L. Zorin’s tragedy The Decembrists and B. Okudzhava’s novel Poor Avrosimov

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of two interpretations of Pavel Pestel’s personality and fate in the literature of the late Khrushchev thaw. The contribution of the peer writers to the liberation of cultural and historical memory from offi cial dictatorship is discussed, the basis of their ideological similarity is shown: this is the awareness of the fatal problem of morality and revolution (Zorin).

E. G. Polonskaya and K. A. Fedin: To the history of the relationship

The article analyzes the correspondence of E. G. Polonskaya and K. A. Fedin, members of the literary group Serapion Brothers, formed in Petrograd in 1921. The short but bright period of the existence of the association is still of interest to many researchers. Particularly relevant is the study of documentary sources, which make it possible to fi ll in the factual gaps in the history of both the Serapion fraternity itself and the relationships of its individual members.

The “eschatological word” in Nikolai Zabolotsky’s poem A City in the Steppe

The article analyzes the poem by Nikolai Zabolotsky A City in the Steppe, which was written by the poet after returning from exile in 1946. The poem unfolds before the reader a grand panorama of the Kazakh city of Karaganda. The city appears as a kind of epic and even mythological City that has replaced the timeworn era. It is shown that there are several metaphysical layers in the plot of the poem: along with the description of the real city of Karaganda, the biblical symbolism of both the Old and New Testaments is present in the text.

On the problem of cyclization of “Little Tragedies” by A. S. Pushkin

The article proposes a new version of the cycle-forming organization of “Little Tragedies” by A. S. Pushkin, after a brief excursion through the already existing cycle-forming concepts of a group of scenes and plays united in Russian culture under the non-author’s general name “Little Tragedies”. The intra-textual situation of unexpected, spontaneous inspiration of the central characters of the plays included in the cycle is put forward as a binding compositional element.

“And the stars serve you”: The sun, the moon and stars as the external outlines of meaningful constants in the works of Protopope Avvakum (Based on the texts of diff erent genres)

The article deals with the identifi cation of semantic constants in the corpus of the texts of Protopope Avvakum, which manifested themselves as a characteristic feature of his worldview with the help of certain resources of the language system. In this regard, the main attention is paid to the substantives “the sun”, “the moon” and “stars” as the external outlines of associative links that arise in a number of works. At the same time, the article considers only those cases where the indicated lexical units are part of a syntactically built sequence.

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