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

Literary criticism

Mythopoetics in the novels of Sasha Sokolov: From the ontological myth of A School for Fools to the deconstruction of the myth of Palisandria

The article examines mythopoetics in Sasha Sokolov’s novels A School for Fools and Palisandria. In the 20th century authors widely turn to neo-mythologism in its various manifestations – from the myth-making of prose writers and poets of the beginning of the century to the nationalfolklore type of mythologism in the prose of the era of stagnation. In Sokolov’s novels, the fi rst branch of the development of mythopoetics continues in the form of modernist myth in A School for Fools and postmodern deconstruction of myth in Palisandria.

Images of Buddhist entities in L. A. Yuzefovich’s novel Campaign to Bar-Khoto

The article deals with the analysis of the images of Buddhist entities and their functions in L. A. Yuzefovich’s novel Campaign to Bar-Khoto as part of a large research concerned with studying the “Buddhist text” of the modern Russian literature. The plot of Campaign to Bar-Khoto is a development of “Solodovnikov’s Notes” from the novel Prince of the Wind: in the new novel the writer focuses on and reinterprets those images and motifs (Buddist ones among them), which he created earlier, and the hero has a biography – including the religious one.

Martian chronicles of the “Belle Époque”

The French literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that can be classified as “space fiction” centered on missions to Mars and making contact with Martians. The topic’s appeal stems from scientific findings of the time (particularly the so-called Martian canals) as well as the traditional symbolism of the Roman god who gave the Red Planet its name. All authors who wrote about Mars during the “Belle Époque” were inspired, to varying degrees, by the writings of the eminent astronomer Camille Flammarion (both scientific and fictional).

“No matter how to live, but to live together…”: The mother-son plot in N. D. Khvoshchinskaya’s socio-political stories

In our article, the optics of research developed by I. Savkina on the material of women’s auto-documentary genres is applied to the artistic oeuvre of N. D. Khvoshchinskaya. Based on her correspondence, we have shown that there are no fixed boundaries between an autodocumentary and a fi ctitious letter in the case of N. D. Khvoshchinskaya. Her works are a kind of sublimation of life experience. In the article we touched on one of the private pages in the biography of the writer, specifi cally refl ected in the mirror of her fi ction, – her marriage with I. I.

The perception of Blaise Pascal and his legacy by the official Soviet culture of the 1920–1930s

The perception of Blaise Pascal by the official Soviet culture of the 1920–1930s has not yet become the subject of a special study. At a new historical turn, the scientific and spiritual legacy of the French thinker was inevitably subject to revision. The authors set themselves the task of revealing the peculiarities of constructing the image of Pascal and interpreting his ideas in the society of mass intellectual culture.

Christian truth and political power in Evelyn Waugh’s Helena

The novel Helena (1950) is analyzed as Evelyn Waugh’s profound statement on his most significant problems: the possibility to resolve the crises of the 20th-century consciousness through Christianity and on the nature of power. Cradle Anglo-Catholics were always suspicious of Waugh, seeing him as an errant Catholic; the paper uses the work of Waugh’s biographers and interpreters to pinpoint his personal reception of Catholicism as the most sophisticated, strictly logical system, firmly grounded in historical fact. Waugh’s story of St.

Alexander Kushner: Two “Visits”

The article considers and compares two poems by A. S. Kushner with a common name – “Visit” (1977 and 1985). They are united by the situation of the lyrical hero returning to the places where he spent his childhood and youth. However, the author’s position is deprived of the nostalgic regret about the past years that is expected in such cases – in particular, due to the mismatch of memories with the real world of the past.

The confrontation of savageness and civilization in Joe Abercrombie’s fantasy Western Red Country

In the novel Red Country the famous British author Joe Abercrombie carries out a genre experiment combining in one book the features of such distant and incongruous genres as fantasy and Western. He constructs in his imaginary world a territory with all specific characteristics of a Western chronotopos and actively uses typical plot devices of the Western. But on the level of ideas the plot of Red Country comes into a conflict with the basic values of the Western, instilling the clichés borrowed from this genre with a unique author’s meaning.

“Our family was called the ‘blessed family’ in the city...” (to the biography of Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin)

The work deals with the questions of the biography of the outstanding Russian scientist-humanitarian, academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences A. N. Pypin (1833–1904). The purpose of the study is to identify and summarize materials about the Saratov period of the scientist’s life, to present the history of his family, to reveal the role of his father and mother in intellectual and spiritual development.

On the influence of the novel What Is to Be Done? by N. G. Chernyshevsky on the work of S. A. Yesenin

The article discusses the origins of Sergei Yesenin’s acquaintance with the novel What Is to Be Done? by N. G. Chernyshevsky: this happened in Spas-Klepikovskaya second-class teacher’s school in 1909-1912. The work was read among the intellectuals, and students outside of school hours argued about it and embraced the ideals of the “new people”. Later Yesenin encountered Chernyshevsky’s novel at the lectures on Russian literature by P. N. Sakulin at Moscow City People’s University named after A. L. Shanyavsky.

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