2025 Issue №3

The article highlights the reception in Russian literature of one of the most popular
Western European plots — the story of Melusine. The aim of the study is to examine the attempts to appropriate this plot in Russia from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The story of Melusine formed the basis of two French-language novels at the turn of the 14th—15th centuries, and a 15th-century German translation contributed to the wide dissemination of the novel in non-Francophone Europe, primarily in the form of chapbooks. In Russia, the novel appeared in the 17th century in a translation from Polish. One of the two known translations served as the basis for a play staged in the theatre of Natalia Alexeyevna, the sister of Peter the Great. However, the book never became part of popular literature in Russia, despite the intensive influx of translated chivalric novels into Russian belles lettres in the 17th—18th centuries. The 19th century witnessed a single attempt to engage with the plot, undertaken by V. P. Avenarius in the children’s tale The Beautiful Melusine. The tale is an adaptation for children’s reading of Goethe’s novella The New Melusine, which only loosely corresponds to the medieval novel and is rather an authorial parodic “variation on the theme.” Despite the story of Melusine being known in Russia since the 17th century, the specifics of the interpretation of the image and the context in which it appeared indicate that the plot did not take root in Russian culture. It acquired an original authorial realization only in the mid-20th century through the work of A. M. Remizov.

The aim of the present study is to analyze the origins of women’s literary craftsmanship in Russia through the example of one of the first Russian female writers. The article examines the creative path of Alexandra Petrovna Khvostova (née Kheraskova), a distinctive Russian writer of the 18th century whose work, nevertheless, has not yet become the subject of independent scholarly research. At the same time, any account of the origins of Russian women’s prose cannot be considered complete without reference to her name. Within the framework of the article, an attempt is made to classify Khvostova’s literary heritage by genre, which opens up prospects for further, more detailed study of her artistic world.

The work of Olga Tokarczuk is examined in the context of the nomadological theory of postmodernism as reflected in the writings of philosophers G. Deleuze and F. Guattari. The study investigates the concept of the “rhizome,” which in Tokarczuk’s work functions as a method of plot construction for her literary texts in general and the novel Primeval and
Other Times in particular. The metaphor of the rhizome is expressed in the novel not only through the image of a giant fungal network, a mycelium, but also through a distinctive worldview based on the interconnectedness of all living things and all entities (human beings, living and non-living nature). Thus, Tokarczuk’s work offers a perspective on the world that is far removed from anthropocentrism. The article also analyzes the theme of existential crisis, reflected in the landowner Popielski’s search for the meaning of existence. The game he plays, Ignis Fatuus, metaphorically illustrates what Gilles Deleuze refers to as the rhizome. A gene­ral conclusion is drawn about the constructive role of the rhizome as a means of realizing Olga Tokarczuk’s artistic vision.