2019 Issue №1

The article reveals peculiarities of representation of the autobiographical topos in N. Kononov’s short story “Svetotomia” that is present implicitly in each work of the writer. In this short story, the autobiographical discourse is represented via the painting and photography code. The authors emphasize the significance of the concepts of “life” and “death” and reveal their mythopoetic semantics of cycle and mutual transition. Ekphrastic descriptions are both ex­plicit and implicit in Kononov’s short story. The authors conclude that in “Svetotomia”, the text produces ekphrasis and at the same time, ekphrasis shapes the plot, and painting and photography create autobiography.

The article describes the specific features of Kononov’s dialogue as the au­thor of the novel “Flaneur” with Polish messianism, which is presented by Mickiewicz’s “Books and the Pilgrimage of the Polish Nation” and Slovat­sky’s “Journey to the East”. Kononov’s parody and play with historical myths of Polishness allow the reader to compare his novel with the literary works of Gombrovich. The author concludes that Kononov’s Tadeush represents the an­thropological trichotomy: clothing — body — soul. In the parody and lan­guage representation of the Polish messianic idea, the key role is played by the verbs “to wander”, “to choose”, “to lead”and “to send”.

Sigmund Freud and Hugo von Hofmannsthal are among the most im­portant representatives of the world culture of the beginning of the 20th centu­ry, which was equally influenced by science and arts. The creative work of the Aus­trian poet Hofmannsthal, also a dramatist and a writer, is a good example of this kind of symbiosis. The remaining part of Hofmannsthal’s library, his letters to other cultural influencers (Arthur Schnitzler, Hermann Bahr, Carl Burckhardt, Ernst Chladni) and the memories of him (Rudolf Kassner) refer to Hofmanns­thal’s interest in psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and many of his literary works allude to Sigmund Freud’s findings. The psy­chograme of the pro­tagonists in his works resemble the types of psyche similar to the ones described by Sigmund Freud. Hofmannsthal’s characters are driv­en by instincts, which are irrational and often lead to self-destruction («Das Märchen der 672 Nacht», «Elektra»). Their dreams disclose the subconscious and the hidden wishes better than the protagonists themselves. The self-identification of Hofmannsthal’s cha­racters and Freud’s patients is fragment­ed. They can neither identify them­selves as an integrated personality nor tell the difference between reality and the dream world. This fragmentation is re­flected in the language of his characters, as it is seen in the case of the protag­onist in the short story «Der Brief», who can nei­ther think, nor speak logical­ly.

Based on a number of literary, journalistic and epistolary texts the author explores S. Dovlatov’s perception of A. Solzhenitsyn as a writer and a repre­sentative of Russian literature abroad. A. Solzhenitsyn was not just a name for S. Dovlatov, but rather a most outstanding personality. The article de­scribes S. Dovlatov’s complicated attitude to A. Solzhenitsyn, the author of the “The Gulag Archipelago”. His attitude changed over time: from admira­tion and respect during the early period of S. Dovlatov’s literary career to criticism and irony in the last years of his life.