S.N. Durylin’s Easter story “On someone else's grave”: genre update

The article explores poetics of the unpublished Easter story by S.N. Durylin “On an unrelated grave” (1922). The story is important mainly because the author manages to renew the genre not only by returning to the original spiritual meanings, but also presenting the unique ontological project. Taking into account the experience of the predecessors-classics, first of all, A.P. Chekhov and his story “Holy night” (1886), the writer expands possibilities of the biblical subtext by creating an intertextual evangelical plot that unfolds in parallel with the main one. Using modernist experience of L.N. Andreev and M. Gorky, the symbolist writers, Durylin disputes it, disagreeing with travesty and fantastic versions of the interpretation of Easter story. The author depicts the plot of the resurrection of the soul of the main character Andrei Omutov, who, experiencing the tragic death of his mother, thinks about eternity for the first time. The author’s ontological concept, affirming infinity and the absence of boundaries, is expressed by the special construction of the temporal triad “past — present — future”. The idea of transcendental reality, suggesting Absolute, is formed by alternating passages in present and future tense: these are descriptions of mother’ existence and church hymns quotations. In the past tense, the story of hero’s childhood and his mother’s death are given. The spiritual path to the eternal “to be” represents the inner plot of this story. The milestones of this plot are intertextually indicated by Easter exapostillarium, which is quoted three times: in the epigraph, at the time when it sounds at Easter services and, finally, on a grave of a stranger during matin service, conducted by Father Alexander, when the hero’s spiritual resurrection occurs.