Article

Name: “Grazhdane lesa” (“Citizens of the forest”) by Nikolay Akhsharumov in the context of the philosophical and aesthetic struggle of the 1860s

Authors: Alexey E. Kozlov

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The paper addresses the issues of plot and motif synthesis in Russian fiction by analyzing the allegorical (fantastic) novel “Grazhdane lesa” (“Citizens of the Forest”) by Nikolay Akhsharumov. Throughout the pages of the story, Akhsharumov engages in polemics with renowned writers of his era, including Leo Tolstoy, Fedor Dostoevsky, and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. Some levels of the intertext have been revealed and are discussed in the paper. The examples include modern literature works, scientific treatises, and popular science compilations. The focus is also on the medieval plots of the novel about the fox adapted for the New Age reader by I. V. Goethe in his “Reineke Fuchs” (“Reynard the Fox”) translated into Russian by Mikhail Dostoevsky in 1848. Starting from generalized, stereotyped ideas about Siberia and the Far East, Akhsharumov ignores the rich ethnographic tradition. He creates a dystopia, the central conflict of which is between Lazarus, the symbol of enlightenment and liberal democracy, and the animal world. Special attention is paid to the Old Testament allusions, for the mythopoetics of the novel delves into both the cosmogony plots about the creation of a specific civilization and the eschatological plots centered on the death of a civil society. Akhsharumov considers this motif to be crucial, especially since he was once closely associated with the Petrashevsky circle. Finally, the novel is examined from the point of view of literary failure. In particular, a conclusion is drawn that the synthesis of the contexts under consideration was not organic, resulting in a weightier and unacceptable piece of work for contemporaries.

Keywords: Russian literature of the 19th century, Akhsharumov, Dostoevsky, Vsemirnyy trud, novels about the fox, dystopia, recurrence and alternativity

Bibliography:

Akhsharumov N. D. Literaturnaya kritika i estetika [Literary criticism and aesthetics]. Cherepovets, ChSU, 2019, 424 p.

Bakhtin M. M. Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaya kul’tura srednevekov’ya i Renessansa [Creative work of François Rabelais and popular culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance]. Moscow, 1990, 543 p.

Darkevich V. P. Narodnaya kul’tura Srednevekov’ya: Parodiya v literature i iskusstve 9–16 vv. [Folk culture of the Middle Ages: parody in literature and art of the 9th–16th centuries]. Moscow, Nauka, 1992, 288 p.

Dostoevsky in Context. D. A. Martinsen, O. Maiorova (Eds.). Cambridge, Cam-bridge University Press, 2016, 329 p. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139236867

Filosofskiy vek. Al’manakh [Philosophical age. Almanac]. St. Petersburg, Sankt-Peterburgskiy Tsentr istorii idey, 2000. Iss. 12: Rossiyskaya utopiya: Ot ideal’nogo gosudarstva k sovershennomu obshchestvu 12. Russian Utopianism: From an Ideal State to the Perfect Society]. 321 p.

Kozlov A. E. Ot Lazarya do Petrashevtsev: voobrazhenie Sibiri v allegoriche-skoy povesti N. D. Akhsharumova “Grazhdane lesa” [From Lazarus to the Petrashevtsy: Imagining Siberia in the Allegorical Novel Citizens of the Forest by Nikolai Akhsharumov]. Imagology and Comparative Studies. 2021, no. 15. DOI 10.17223/2409 9554/15/13

Likhachev D. S. ”Nebrezhenie slovom” u Dostoevskogo [Literature – reality – literature]. Leningrad, Nauka, 1984, 256 p.

Mikhaylov A. D. Starofrantsuzskiy “Roman o Lise” i problemy srednevekovogo zhivotnogo eposa [Old French “The Novel of the Fox” and the problems of medieval animal epic]. In: Roman o Lise [The Novel of the Fox]. A. G. Nayman (Transl. from the Old French). Moscow, 1987.

Milchina V. A. Vstuplenie [Introduction]. In: Chastnaya i obshchestvennaya zhizn’ zhivotnykh [Private and public life of animals]. Мoscow, 2015, pp. 5–23.

Reytblat A. I. Klassika, skandal, Bulgarin… Stat'i i materialy po sotsiologii i istorii russkoy literatury [Classics, scandal, Bulgarin ... Articles and materials on sociology and the history of Russian literature]. Мoscow, 2020, 576 p.

Riasanovsky N. Foureierism in Russia: An Estimate of the Petrashevcy. American Slavic and East European Review. 1953, no. 3, pp. 289–302.

Russkie utopii [Russian utopias]. Vs. Bagno (Comp.). St. Petersburg, 1995, 350 p.

Russkiy proekt ispravleniya mira i khudozhestvennoe tvorchestvo 19–20 vekov: Kollektivnaya monografiya [The Russian project of correcting the world and artistic creativity of the 19th–20th centuries: Collective monograph] N. V. Kovtun (Ed. in Ch.). Moscow, 2014, 405 p.

Russkiy travelog [Russian travelogue]. Novosibirsk, Nemo Press, 2018, 832 p.

Russkiy realizm 19 veka: obshchestvo, znanie, povestvovanie [Russian realism of the 19th century. Society, knowledge, narration]. M. Vaysman, A. V. Vdovin, I. Kliger, K. A. Ospovat. (Eds.). Moscow, NLO, 568 p.

Shatin Yu. V. Puteshestvie Nekhlyudova v Sibir’. K probleme initsiatsii [Nekhlyudov’s journey to Siberia: the problem of initiation]. Siberian Journal of Philology. 2016, no. 2, pp. 11–15. DOI 10.17223/18137083/55/2

Sibir’ v kontekste mirovoy kul’tury [Siberia in the context of world culture]. A. P. Kazarkin (Ed.). Tomsk, 2003, 216 p.

Sibirskiy tekst v natsional’nom syuzhetnom prostranstve [Siberian text in the national plot space]. K. V. Anisimov (Ed.). Krasnoyarsk, 2014, 226 p.

Sozina E. K. Individual’noe i obshchee v sud’be i tvorchestve literatora-raznochintsa: razmyshleniya nad prozoy F. M. Reshetnikova [The private and the public in the fate and work of the writer-raznochinets: reflections on the prose of F. M. Reshetnikov]. Ural Historical Journal. 2009, no. 1, pp. 41–50.

Tyupa V. I. Mifologema Sibiri: k voprosu o “sibirskom tekste” russkoy literatury [Mythologeme of Siberia: to the question of the “Siberian text” of Russian literature]. Siberian Journal of Philology. 2002, no. 1, pp. 27–35.

Vdovin A. V. “Nevedomyi mir”: russkaia i evropeiskaia estetika i problema reprezentatsii krest’ian v literature serediny 19 veka [Russian and European aesthetics and the problem of representation of peasants in the literature of the mid-nineteenth century]. New Literary Observer. 2016, vol. 146, no. 5, pp. 287–315.

Volodina N. V., Sumarokova L. A. Akhsharumov o romane F. M. Dostoevskogo “Prestuplenie i nakazanie” [N. D. Akhsharumov on the novel “Crime and punishment” by F. M. Dostoevsky]. Cherepovets State University Bulletin. 2015, no. 4, pp. 65–69.

Zorin A. L. Ulybka Natashi Rostovoy: “Voyna i mir” v intertekstual’noy i biograficheskoy perspective [The smile of Natasha Rostova: “War and Peace” in intertextual and biographical perspective]. Shagi (Steps). 2019, no. 2, pp. 86–109.