MYTHOLOGY OF ORPHEUS IN CLASSICAL CULTURAL TRADITION

The article examines the peculiarities in the formation of the Orpheus mythologeme in the ancient cultural tradition. An analysis of the works of ancient authors, including Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil and Ovid allows to single out the specifics of creating the image of Orpheus. The latter is seen by the above-mentioned authors not only as a poet and musician who had lost his beloved Eurydice, but also as the founder of cult rites known as Orphic mysteries. “Orphism” as a system of religious and philosophical views became most widespread in the era of Peisistratus in the 6th century BC in Attica. Dionysus, revered by the Orphic, was important for farmers as a deity of eternal rebirth and powerful natural forces. In the ancient cultural tradition, the image of Orpheus develops under a double sign: both Apollo and Dionysus. The ideas of Orphic philosophy can be found in the religious and philosophical teachings of the Pythagorean school and in the writings of Plato. The original transformation of the Orphic-Pythagorean ideas and the mythologeme of Orpheus occurs in Virgil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which are also the subject of this article. The comparative historical analysis of artworks and philosophical treatises of antiquity carried out in the course of this study indicates that the mythologeme of Orpheus in the ancient cultural tradition is an example of the embodiment of the syncretic unity of art and religion in the archaic consciousness.

ARCHETYPICAL CONSTANTS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RUSSIAN NOVEL

The article examines the correlation of the Russian classic novel with the Easter archetype dominant in Russian culture. The authors believe that the novel assumed a central position in the genre system of 19th century Russian literature, not only because of its natural openness, which allowed it to recreate life and man both in the general dimension and in private manifestations, but also because of the greatest responsiveness of this genre to the spiritual needs of Russian culture. The article examines the “plot space” of the Russian novel, which gravitates towards the archetypal model, actualizing the scenario of rehabilitation (Dostoevsky) / awakening (Goncharov), or salvation. Not only doesn’t the hero’s line in the Russian novel imply an end; moreover, as it lines up vertically, it suggests his rebirth to a “new life,” sometimes even posthumous, as was the case with Turgenev’s Bazarov, or through the fear of falling into the hellish abyss of modern life, as is it was with Oblomov. Using the example of novels by F. Dostoevsky, I. Turgenev, I. Goncharov and L. Tolstoy, the article demonstrates that the main mission of the hero of the Russian novel was that of personal salvation, the achievement of “new happiness” (Prince Andrei Bolkonsky), which is associated with forgiveness, a willingness to accept God and with the “new life.” The Easter nature of Russian culture predetermines the gravitation of the Russian classical novel (as a typological variety of the Russian novel) to the artistic realizations of the idea of salvation present in world literature in genres of a non-novel nature. The Russian novel primarily developed the storylines and motifs that originated in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Goethe’s Faust, which suggested two options for personal salvation: the awareness of sins and “behind the door of the grave.” The second option was more relevant for the 19th century Russian novel. The savior hero, rooted in Cervantes’s novel, was also relevant for Russian literature, although not as popular. Taking into account the complex explorations of modern writers in the field of the novel genre, the authors conclude that there is a present-day connection with the Russian classic novel, i.e., in E. Vodolazkin’s prose: apparent signs of a “Dante plot” are present in the novel Lavr. Regardless of all the metamorphoses, the Russian classical novel is still a national literary model in the space of Russian culture.

THE TITLE AS A PROBLEM OF HISTORICAL POETICS

An analysis of the works devoted to the poetics of the title demonstrates that although the majority of facts are presented correctly, the lack of a systematic approach and the required historical perspective makes the explanation of their origin completely unsatisfactory. It actualizes the need to review all the discovered facts in the history of the title as a form of the author’s reflection on the text framework in the context of historical poetics. Periodization of historical poetics in the terminology proposed by S. S. Averintsev demonstrates that the title is absent in the period of pre-reflexive traditionalism and appears only when moving to the next period, namely, reflexive traditionalism. The most archaic titles include the widely understood genre and theme of the text. Later, the title transforms into merely a name; common titles with predication occur sporadically. During the Renaissance, the title may have acquired a conditional character (numerical name), and the identification of the text was carried out through the development of the predicative part, which annotated the text and was sometimes of a promotional nature. The title in its modern form emerges during the transition from reflexive traditionalism to the anti-traditionalist tendencies of the bourgeois era. In the 19th century, the abstract becomes an independent genre and breaks away from the title, while the author, who was initially in the last position, subsequently moved to the first in the title complex (book name, genre, author).

THE POLEMIC CONTEXT OF THE “SICK CHILD” IMAGE BY A. A. BLOK

This study examines the early phase of the self-defining process in Russian literary modernism, which demonstrated a desire to establish clear demarcation between “decadence” and “symbolism” on one hand and to be free from the psychopathological discourse in the evaluation of new artistic phenomena, thereby shifting the conventionally recognized border between “norm” and “pathology.” This paper analyses Aleksander Blok’s own views on “decadence” and “decadents” on the basis of his ego-documents (his diary and notebooks), discusses “decadents” and “symbolists” in the press, and, finally, the poet’s response to them and its literary embodiment — the poem “A. M. Dobrolyubov” (1903). In this poem Blok represents the image of one of the first Russian decadents A. Dobrolyubov, whose life became a legend, giving rise to a certain narrative. The basic concepts of the image created by Aleksander Blok in this poem are investigated, in particular, the image of a “sick child”: its sources, which date back to the polemics of the early 1900s and to a corpus of articles written by Z. Gippius, are identified along with a number of intertextual parallels (D. Merezhkovsky, F. Dostoevsky, A. Dobrolyubov). The article traces the poem’s textological history (from a note in the autograph book and the first publication to the inclusion in the “lyrical trilogy”) and reveals the functions of the epigraph as a marker of the “Petersburg text.”

MEDICAL DISCOURSE IN THE NOVEL BY YU. O. DOMBROVSKY THE MONKEY COMES FOR ITS SKULL

The article explores the poetics of Yu. O. Dombrovsky's novel The Monkey Comes for its Skull (1943–1959) through the prism of medical discourse, which occupies a prominent place in the structure of the work. Every appeal of the novel’s characters to medical discourse indicates a situation of communicative shift, the breakdown of connections between words and things. Thus, “medicalization” becomes one of the symptoms of the new paradoxical reality of occupied and post-war Europe. Contrary to the Enlightenment paradigm, a medical view of the motives of human actions does not reveal the truth, but on the contrary, leads away from it. For Dombrovsky's work, ancient Stoic philosophy with its understanding of wisdom as therapy of the soul, the completeness of self-control and absolute spiritual freedom is also important. Sooner or later, each of the characters has to remain one-on-one with his own conscience and moral dilemmas, while auxiliary discursive practices cease to be an effective means of social camouflage. The ideological composition of the work corresponds to a specific narrative technique and motive structure, which is characterized by the use of genre techniques of detective and spy novels. In general, the novel The Monkey Comes for Its Skull offers the reader an alternative to “new prose,” with its demonstrative rejection of fictionality, its accent on documentary, factography. Dombrovsky prefers to overcome the “literariness” of literature from within the prevailing genre and aesthetic conventions, synthesizing and transforming various types of discourses, including medical ones.

A HOUSE AND NOTIONS OF IT IN RUSSIAN FOLK WEDDING SPEECHES

In this work, a list of the house nominations, stylistic and poetic means and techniques used to describe the groom’s and bride’s houses are considered based on published and archival materials of the 19th — early 21st centuries. The description of the newlyweds’ houses is formed by depicting three macrolocuses: the adjacent territory, or courtyard; the zone connecting the courtyard with the interior of the dwelling (porch, door, threshold) and the interior of the house, the image of which is formed by sequentially naming the loci that are most significant from the ritual viewpoint (place of honor, wide bench, furnace, etc.). The houses of both the groom and the bride are described using the very same poetic means of the ‘house’ semantic group. The concept of the bride’s house as a “strange” space for the groom’s party is manifested in speeches related to climbing the porch, opening doors, crossing the threshold and entrance. As the groomsman progresses and claims the house territory, the sense of the house as “strange” intensifies, reaches a critical point at the moment of crossing the threshold and declines after the entrance to the house. The dynamics of the groomsman’s image is revealed in speeches emphasizing the crossing of the threshold. The entrance of the best man to the house is interpreted as a case of crossing the boundary: penetration of the “strange” space is accompanied by a deterioration in vision, the onset of limpness and muteness, being marked, losing clothes or shoes, and giving away material values (money). As he claims the “strange” space and transcodes it into “own space,” the temporary physical indisposition of the groomsman passes. The courtyard, staircase, steps, porch, and threshold are regularly depicted in the descriptions of houses and adjacent territory. The most frequent epithets arewide andnew. Numerous diminutives are another feature of the texts that describe the house.

OSIP DYMOV AND CHARLES BOVARY (THE INTERTEXTUAL STRUCTURE OF CHEKHOV’S SHORT STORY THE FIDGET)

A. P. Chekhov's short story The Fidget (1892) is an abridged hypertext of G. Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary (1856). The article undertakes a detailed comparison of the characters who occupy a similar place in the narrative and figurative system of these two works: Osip Dymov and Charles Bovary. Both of them are doctors, but Chekhov's character seems to realize the untapped potential that was laid down in the character penned by Flaubert. He is no longer a failed doctor, but a talented one, with all the qualities required to become an excellent medical scientist. Thus, Chekhov does not merely stand up for the medical community, which he is no stranger to. Thanks to this, the story of the Russian writer transforms into a polemical interpretation of the classic French novel. In Flaubert's Emma's imaginary search for the meaning of life, which explains her two adulteries in Madame Bovary, Chekhov seems rather inclined to see the selfishness and lack of responsibility that destroy her family and lead to her own death. It is not by chance that Dymov, rather than Olga Ivanovna dies as a result of her own similar behavior in Chekhov’s short story. At the same time, Chekhov's text is also a polemical interpretation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1873–1877), which was created as an explicit hypertext of Flaubert's novel. In the short story, Chekhov's critical reinterpretation of these two works is clearly based on a kind of “folk” morality of the Ant from the canonical Krylov fable The Dragonfly and the Ant (1808), which is clearly referenced in the title and text of the story. The intertextual structure of Chekhov's story is examined in the article primarily as a system of its pretexts, some of which relate to it in unison, and others-dissonantly. At the same time, the former are the object of polemical interpretation, while the latter are the subject of stylization and value orientation.

A. P. CHEKHOV AND THE CONCEPT OF “DEGENERATION”: TO THE PROBLEM OF CRYPTOPOETICS OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

The concept of “degeneration” is associated with the fin-de-siècle period and came to Russian soil from Western Europe. First and foremost, it was represented there by Cesare Lombroso and his popularizer, the author of the book Degeneration, Max Nordau. The concept of degeneracy was studied by the scientist using the work of outstanding representatives of European art, including Leo Tolstoy. The book was a scandalous success in Russia and a subject of numerous magazine reviews. Chekhov implicitly participated in this polemic. The writer’s cryptic review of the fashionable problem of degeneracy can be seen in the image of Dr. Dorn, which allows to examine the elements of Chekhov’s cryptopoetics. The surname of this character in The Seagull is considered as a transformation of the surname Nordau. An analysis of Dorn’s behavior and speech suggests that the author of the play uses it to express his position regarding the “nervous age” and the fatigue and degeneration associated with it. The intertextually expressed polemic between Chekhov and Nordau allows to define the role of Dorn as a hidden trickster. This is an additional argument that proves the validity of the author’s definition of The Seagull as a comedy.

THE IDEA OF KINDRED LOVE IN F. M. DOSTOEVSKY’S THE RAW YOUTH

The article clarifies the genre content of the novel The Raw Youth as a novel of education, reveals the philosophical and pedagogical ideas of F. M. Dostoevsky regarding the principles and content of spiritual and moral upbringing in the Orthodox environment. The connection between the artistic presentation of the upbringing process in the novel and the author's ideas, which are essentially similar to the ideas of the Christian anthropology school in late 19th century pedagogy, is outlined. In contrast with and in overcoming the “accidental family,” which is extralegal in the spiritual and civil sense, Dostoevsky offers society the idea of kindred love, which is manifested in the “mind of the heart” (emotional intelligence), the unity of value and moral grounds, mutual respect and support and non-violent relations. Depicting the story of the “accidental family,” which was the result of God's indulgence of human infirmity and lack of reason, F. M. Dostoevsky allows the heroes and the reader to see the human relations ideal in the phenomenon of the family. The former correlates with the will of God and the essential world order. The novel is understood as a representation of a person’s spiritual path. The interpretation of the negative role of Versilov in the spiritual formation of Arkady Dolgoruky undergoes a critical examination. Positive changes in the soul of the Raw Youth are determined by the desire to know and the knowledge of the father’s spiritual make-up. The space of kindred love and family is revealed to be instrumental in the emergence of the collective personality of the Raw Youth and in the spiritual enrichment of all family members. The author concludes that the development of a young person is conditioned both by his own search for the ideal, which is typical for youth, and by the joint efforts of the family that moves towards its ideal through overcoming the separation, which is a source of suffering.

ПРАВИЛА ЯЗЫКА — РЕЧИ — СЛОВА В ПСАЛТИРИ, ПРИТЧАХ СОЛОМОНА И ЕВАНГЕЛИИ

Spiritual texts implicitly contain rules and recommendations for the construction of speech communication. These rules are derived from direct references to the language-speech-word, or indicate speech actions or language actions. The texts of the Psalter, the book of Proverbs of Solomon, and the Holy Gospel are selected for this article. The author identified direct or hidden references to the terms language-speech-word-mouth that express judgments about the content or evaluation of these words in the life of a person. All these terms are used in the sense of “an instrument of communication, an instrument of organizing human contacts.” And they all receive a fundamentally dual moral and ethical assessment: language-speech-word can either “praise God” and be “words of good,” carry “joy in the response of the mouth,” or become an instrument of evil (“slander”), deception (“flattery”), suffering and destruction (“flood verbs”). Compared with oral pre-literate speech in folklore at a new stage of civilization development, these terms have acquired new meanings in written and printed literature: the term language obtains the meaning of “people” (in the Psalter), the term word becomes of overriding importance for European culture as the Word of God (the Holy Gospel), and the term mouth is metaphorically used most frequently in the Proverbs of Solomon. The revealed position in regard to the primacy of moral and ethical requirements for the speaker in the preparation of speech, when “pure heart” is mentioned first (“create a pure heart in me, oh God”), about righteousness and wisdom (in “Parables”), about the qualities of a person (see the Beatitudes), and only then it is about actions “of the tongue and mouth.” The duality of assessments of language-speech-word also speaks of the dual nature of man, who either “praises God with his mouth” or receives “judgment” for idle and false words. The analysis of judgments about language-speech-word-mouth in spiritual texts allows us to form recommendations and instructions for language acts and actions of a modern person who must preserve moral and cultural traditions and creatively apply the newly revealed rules in their own speech acts.