SERGEI DURYLIN'S ANCIENT TRIPTYCH AND IVAN SHMELYOV'S HOW DID IT ALL HAPPEN?: CHRISTIAN REALISM POETICS
The article presents the investigation of creative connections between Sergei Durylin and Ivan Shmyolev, two émigré writers of the fi rst half of the 20th century. They were brought together not only by common religious values, but also by their tragic destiny. That is why we believe the compari...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Russian |
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Petrozavodsk State University
2014-10-01
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| Series: | Проблемы исторической поэтики |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://poetica.pro/files/redaktor_pdf/1429707505.pdf |
| Summary: | The article presents the investigation of creative connections
between Sergei Durylin and Ivan Shmyolev, two émigré writers of the fi rst
half of the 20th century. They were brought together not only by common
religious values, but also by their tragic destiny. That is why we believe the
comparison of their artistic principles — through the example of Durylin’s
Ancient Triptych (1919–1923) and Shmelyov’s How did it all happen? (1944) to
be very productive, especially considering that no serious comparative
analyze of these works has been done before. The comparison of two texts
clearly shows that their problematic and poetics are quite closely connected.
Both writers depict the final period of life of outwardly successful, but
spiritually devastated personalities (professor of ancient history and general
Patrikiy Patrikiyevich Drevlyaninov). Durylin and Shmelyov tried to help
their heroes to overcome the spiritual deadlock, senselessness of existence
and their personal obsessions (for the professor it is the idea of scientifi c
labour corrupting the society, for the general it is gambling).
Both the professor and the general travel their road of purifi cation, their ‘way
of the Cross’, their Golgotha and their Resurrection. Durylin directly connects
his character’s road with the liturgical cycle, because ‘fi ghting with the devil’
takes place during the Great Lent, while the grandfather sees his life-changing
dream on the eve of Easter and the Passion Week. The hero’s pilgrimage to Easter
forms the plot of this story, actualizing the importance of Easter archetype for
Russian literature. The methods used by both authors to free their characters
from spiritual emptiness (introduction of a ‘spirit character’ as a reference to the
devil from Dostoyevsky’s novel The Karamazov Brothers) are also similar.
Stylistic features of Durylin’s and Shmelyov’s poetics — plotlessness, prevailing
of metaphysical problematic, Easter archetype and intertextual references to
classical literature — are also related. All these facts enable us to classify the
works of Sergei Durylin and Ivan Shmelyov those of Christian realism,
distinguished by its own artistic principles and the world view |
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| ISSN: | 1026-9479 1026-9479 |