Feasures of Fandorin’s Quasi-biography: Postmodern Experiment

More than two decades ago, the newest Russian writer B. Akunin began a series of multi-genre novels, the main character of which was Erast Petrovich Fandorin, who quickly made a detective career, has become famous not only in Russia, but far beyond its borders. Firstly appeared in the fiction novel «Azazel», Fandorin later quickly began to acquire the features of a real historical personality that affects the course of historical events. Fandorin’s quasi-biography was supplemented by works whose heroes were his ancestors and descendants. One of these novels is «F. M.», the annexes and additions to which testify to the author’s postmodern experiment, which, leaving only the margin of the explanation necessary for understanding the plot, introduced marginal noncanonical texts and genres (short story, essay, fragment), thereby deciding to expand and clarify its meaning. Literary additions, such as the mini-glossary of drug jargon, or the Zen koan, are included to the literary text. Fragments, essays, short stories, different additions and clarifications, visions and dreams, at first glance, destroy the integrity of the novel of the writer, but in fact expand its narrative capabilities, extend the temporal and spatial characteristics, significantly enrich the main storylines, illuminate the motivation of the heroes , show them in an unusual perspective.

Jacob's Shipwreck

Jewish and Christian authors of the High Middle Ages not infrequently came into dialogue or conflict with each other over traditions drawn from ancient writings outside of the bible. Circulating in Hebrew and Latin translations, these included the two independent versions of the Testament of Naphtali in which the patriarch has a vision of the Diaspora, a shipwreck that scatters the twelve tribes. The Christian narrative is linear and ends in salvation; the Jewish narrative is circular and pessimistic. This book regards this as an emblematic text that illuminates relationships between interpretation, translation, and survival. Such noncanonical texts and their afterlives provided Jews and Christians alike with resources of fiction that they used to reconsider boundaries of doctrine and interpretation. Among the works that the book takes as exemplary of this medieval moment are the Book of Yosippon, a tenth-century Hebrew adaptation of Josephus with a wide circulation and influence in the later middle ages, and the second-century romance of Aseneth about the religious conversion of Joseph's Egyptian wife. Yosippon gave Jews a new discourse of martyrdom in its narrative of the fall of Jerusalem, and at the same time it offered access to the classical historical models being used by their Christian contemporaries. Aseneth provided its new audience of medieval monks with a way to reimagine the troubling consequences of unwilling Jewish converts.

Biblical Apocrypha

The term “biblical apocrypha” is imprecise. What is not meant is what is commonly known as the Apocrypha, the (variable) group of books placed separately in some post-Reformation Bibles between the two Testaments. Those are works found in the 3rd-century bce Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) but not accepted in the Hebrew canon, which was established later. When Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin for his Vulgate, he included books (such as Judith), for which he had no Hebrew original, as deuterocanonical, a “second list” of nevertheless biblical books. The word apocrypha (Greek: “hidden things”) can imply simply “noncanonical,” but more specifically the term refers to noncanonical texts involving (or ascribed to) biblical personages, or expanding upon biblical books and events. Alternative terms used include pseudepigrapha (“spuriously attributed writings,” though this too is imprecise), midrash (Hebrew: “story”), generic designations such as apocalypse (many Old and New Testament apocrypha are apocalyptic), or blanket terms such as legend (or legend cycle). Recent studies refer to “the re-written Bible,” the “Bible in progress,” or (in the title of an important Festschrift) “the embroidered Bible.” The word apocryphus in medieval Latin means “uncertain,” “unreliable,” or “anonymous” or “pseudonymous.” Old Testament apocrypha may date from the 2nd century bce to the early Middle Ages, New Testament apocrypha continued to be produced well into the medieval period, and some overlap exists between the two. Some Old Testament apocrypha are extant in Hebrew or Aramaic, but frequently the original is fragmentary or only presumed on philological grounds or external evidence. Surviving versions are often in Greek and were themselves often translated into one or more languages, such as Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, or Latin. The earliest New Testament apocrypha are in Greek or Latin. Relatively recent discoveries have confirmed the antiquity of some, other apocrypha not known in the Middle Ages have been identified, and Christian writers refer to now-lost apocrypha. The manuscript tradition of many Old and New Testament apocrypha, however, is medieval, and, unlike biblical texts, they were not subject to standardization. Many enjoyed wide circulation throughout the Middle Ages and were translated or adapted into vernacular languages. Sometimes the sole known text may be a medieval version in a language such as Slavonic or Irish. The often neglected but continued development of Old and New Testament apocrypha in the Middle Ages is important, as is the knowledge of these texts within different Eastern and Western medieval cultures. It is thus appropriate to consider individual apocryphal works, and then the various cultures in which they are located.