  nikolayeva-yv-vestnik-2020-4.pdf |
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- Leo Tolstoy's novella “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”: on the question of creative history
- Nikolayeva Ye.V. Leo Tolstoy's novella “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”: on the question of creative history // Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 2020, vol. 26, № 4, pp. 107-112 (In Russ.). DOI https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2020-26-4-107-112
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2020-26-4-107-112
- УДК: 821.161.1.09”19”
- Publish date: 2020-09-28
- Annotation: For the first time, the article presents a comparative analysis of Alexander. Pushkin's remarks about his poem “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” and Leo Tolstoy's short story of the same name, written for children's reading and placed in "The Alphabet Book". In the second half of the 1850s, Leo Tolstoy carefully and with numerous notes read the biography of Pushkin, published by Pavel Annenkov for the collected works of the great author. We can assume that from this time the writer begins a conscious study of Pushkin's prose, which previously had not attracted him. In this book, Leo Tolstoy marks out in pencil, among other information, the unsent Pushkin’s letter to Nikolay Gnedich, in which the author of the poem critically examines its shortcomings. In the late 1860s and the early 1870s, Leo Tolstoy was experiencing a serious creative crisis caused by dissatisfaction with the state of fiction, especially language, of that time. He begins to focus on the language of "folkish literature", for the first time applying new "writing techniques" when creating children's stories for "The Alphabet Book". Comparison of Pushkin's critical remarks about his work with the content, images of the main characters, minor characters and their storylines in Leo Tolstoy's story "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" convinces that the writer took into account Pushkin's remarks, having received from Puskin a genuine lesson in skill.
- Keywords: Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Pavel Annenkov, novella, creative history, “Alphabet Book”, “Prisoner of Caucasus”
- Literature list: Annenkov P.V. Materialy k biografii Aleksandra Sergeevicha Pushkina [Materials for the biography of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin] Pushkin A.S. Sochineniia. S prilozheniem materialov dlia ego biografii, portreta, snimkov s ego pocherka i s ego risunkov i pr [Pushkin A.S. Compositions. With the attachment of materials for his biography, portrait, photographs from his handwriting and from his drawings]. St. Petersburg, P.V. Annenkov Publ., 1855. (In Russ.) N.M. Kavkazskii plennik [Prisoner of the Caucasus]. Biblioteka dlia chteniia [Library for reading]. 1838, vol. XXXI, pp. 17–52. (In Russ.) Pushkin A.S. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 10 t [Complete works: in 10 vols.]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1956–1958. (In Russ.) Pushkin A.S. Sochineniia. S prilozheniem materialov dlia ego biografii, portreta, snimkov s ego pocherka i s ego risunkov i pr [Compositions. With the attachment of materials for his biography, portrait, photographs from his handwriting and from his drawings, etc.]. St. Petersburg, P.V. Annenkov Publ., 1855. (In Russ.) Tikhomirov V.V. Literaturnaia pozitsiia A.S. Pushkina v osmyslenii P.V. Annenkova [Alexander Pushkin’s literary position in the understanding of Pavel Annenkov]. Dva veka russkoi klassiki [Two centuries of the Russian classics]. 2020, Vol 2, № 3, pp. 42–71. DOI https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2020-2-3-42-71 (In Russ.) Tolstoi L.N. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 90 t. [Complete works: in 90 vols.]. Moscow, Khud. lit Publ., 1928–1958. (In Russ.) Tolstoi L.N. i Tolstaia A.A. Perepiska (1857–1903) [Tolstoy L.N. and Tolstaya A.A. Correspondence (1857–1903)]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 2011, 974 p. (In Russ.)