Dialogic Aesthetics in Boris Zaitsev’s Russian-Italian Text
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2023.1.792Keywords:
Russian-Italian text, literary aesthetics, Florence, Russia, Italy, dialogueAbstract
This article examines the interconnection of the images of Russia and Italy in B. K. Zaitsev’s artistic consciousness revealing their ideal-forming meaning and studying the literary and aesthetic concept of the writer. It is argued that the themes of Russia, Italy, and Florence dominate in the writer’s work, making up the internal semantic unity of his multi-genre texts. The “Florentine text” is interpreted as a local textual subsystem of the “Italian text”, which is a dialogical element of the Russian-Italian text (super-text) created by the writer throughout his artistic life. According to Zaitsev, the city of Dante formed his aesthetic experience, his spiritual, and intellectual identity. Building a dialogue between Russian literature and Dante’s work, Zaitsev follows the philosophical and aesthetic programme of Russian Europeanism characteristic of the Silver Age culture. In the article, the author develops the thesis about the relationship between the image of Russia and that of Florence in the artistic consciousness of Boris Zaitsev. It is demonstrated that the study of Zaitsev’s “Florentine text” provides an idea of the semantic conditionality between the leading Russian and Italian themes in the writer’s work that define his aesthetic concept as dialogical. To achieve this goal, the paper analyses Zaitsev’s artistic and documentary evidence about Florence and the features of his aesthetic reception of the culture of Russia and Italy. The article focuses on the method of literary mnemonics developed by the writer. With its help, Zaitsev creates an authorial version of the myth of Florence in the context of Russian and European literature. The reconstruction of the historical and ideological context of Zaitsev’s work proposed in the article makes it possible to understand the artistic and philosophical nature of his works addressed to Russia and Italy more accurately. As a result of the study, the author determines the structure of the dialogical interactions of imaginative and semantic elements of Zaitsev’s Russian-Italian narrative. Russian and Italian themes that form the dialogical integrity of the Russian-Italian text in the writer’s work are a key aspect of our understanding of B. K. Zaitsev’s artistic concept from the point of view of literary theory and aesthetics.
References
Berdyaev, N. A. (1915). Chuvstvo Italii [The Sense of Italy]. In Birzhevye vedomosti. July 2. No. 14 039, p. 2.
Chulkov, G. I. (1930). Gody stranstvii. Iz knigi vospominanii [Years of Wandering. From the Book of Memoirs]. Moscow, Federatsiya. 397 p.
Deotto, P. (1998). Materialy dlya izucheniya ital’yanskogo teksta v russkoi kul’ture [Materials for the Study of the Italian Text in Russian Culture]. In Slavica Tergestina. No. 6, pp. 197–226.
Deotto, P. (2004). “Obrazy Italii” Muratova: postizhenie svoego v Chuzhom [Muratov’s Images of Italy: Comprehending One’s Own in Another]. In Majmieskutow, A. (Ed.). Literackie jako dzielo literackie. Bydgoszcz, Wydawnictwo Akademii Bydgoskiej, pp. 455–460.
Dragunova, Yu. A. (2011). Mifologema Rossii v tvorchestve B. K. Zaitseva [The Mythologeme of Russia in the Works of B. K. Zaitsev]. In Tvorchestvo B. K. Zaitseva i mirovaya kul’tura. Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 130-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya pisatelya. 27–29 aprelya 2011 goda. Oryol, Orlovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, pp. 60–64.
Dudina, E. F. (2007). Tvorchestvo B. K. Zaitseva 1901–1921 godov: svoeobrazie khudozhestvennogo metoda [B. K. Zaitsev’s Creative Work of 1901–1921: The Originality of the Artistic Method]. Dis. … kand. filol. nauk. Oryol, S. n. 230 p.
Fedyakin, S. (2020). Liki Florentsii v Ital’yanskikh stikhakh Aleksandra Bloka [The Faces of Florence in Alexander Blok’s Italian Poems]. In Quaestio Rossica. Vol. 8. No. 3, pp. 861–870. DOI 10.15826/qr.2020.3.500.
Gardzonio, S. (2006). Ob ital’yanskikh stikhakh Gumileva, Gorodetskogo i Pasternaka: (freski pizanskogo Kamposanto) [About the Italian Poems of Gumilyov, Gorodetsky, and Pasternak: (Frescoes of the Camposanto of Pisa)]. In Gardzonio, S. Stat’i po russkoi poezii i kul’ture XX veka. Moscow, Vodolei Publ., pp. 37–42.
Genieva, E., Barenboim, P. (Eds.). (2003). Khozhdeniya vo Florentsiyu. Florentsiya i florentiitsy v russkoi kul’ture. Iz veka XIX v vek XXI [Going to Florence. Florence and the Florentines in Russian Culture. From the 19th Century to the 21st Century]. Moscow, Rudomino. 655 p.
Grebneva, M. P. (2009). Kontseptosfera florentiiskogo mifa v russkoi slovesnosti [The Conceptosphere of the Florentine Myth in Russian Literature]. Tomsk, Izdatel’stvo Tomskogo universiteta. 182 p.
Kara-Murza, A. A. (2009). “Prostranstvo kul’tury” versus “prostranstvo vlasti”. (Istoriosofskie razmyshleniya Borisa Konstantinovicha Zaitseva) [“The Space of Culture” versus “The Space of Power” (Historiosophical Reflections of Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev)]. In Kara-Murza, A. A. Intellektual’nye portrety. Ocherki o russkihx myslitelyakh XIX–XX vv. Moscow, Institut filosofii RAN. Iss. 2, pp. 40–62.
Kara-Murza, A. A. (2016). Znamenitye russkie o Florentsii [Famous Russians about Florence]. Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Ol’gi Morozovoi. 639 p.
Komolova, N. P. (1998). Italiya v sud’be i tvorchestve B. Zaitseva [Italy in B. Zaitsev’s Fate and Work]. Moscow, Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN. 86 p.
Komolova, N. P. (2005). Italiya v russkoi kul’ture Serebryanogo veka. Vremena i sud’by [Italy in the Russian Culture of the Silver Age. Times and Destinies]. Moscow, Nauka. 470 p.
Konstantinova, S. L. (2005). “Ital’yanskii tekst” russkoi literatury XIX–XX vv. [The “Italian Text” of Russian Literature of the 19th–20th Centuries]. Pskov, Pskovskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet. 159 p.
Lo Gatto, E. (1976). I miei incontri con la Russia. Milano, Mursia. 239 p.
Lotman, Yu. M. (2004). Semiosfera [Semiosphere]. St Petersburg, Iskusstvo-SPb. 704 p.
Mednis, N. E. (2003). Sverkhteksty v russkoi literature [Metatexts in Russian Literature]. Novosibirsk, Novosibirskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet. 170 p.
Osorgin, M. A. (1923). Etyudy o pisatelyakh. B. K. Zaitsev [Etudes about Writers. B. K. Zaitsev]. In Novaya russkaya kniga. No. 3–4, pp. 8–9.
Panova, L. G. (2019). Ital’yanyas’, ruseya: Dante i Petrarka v literaturnom diskurse Serebryanogo veka ot simvolistov do Mandel’shtama [Turning into Italians, Turning into Russians: Dante and Petrarch in the Literary Discourse of the Silver Age from the Symbolists to Mandelstam]. Moscow, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet. 679 p.
Perepiska B. K. Zaitseva s Ol’goi Sin’orelli (1923–1965) [B. K. Zaitsev’s Correspondence with Olga Signorelli (1923–1965)]. (2012). In Garetto, E., d’Amelia, A., Kumpan, K., Rizzi, D. (Eds.). Russko-ital’yanskii arkhiv IX. Ol’ga Resnevich-Sin’orelli i russkaya emigratsiya. Perepiska. Salerno, S. n., pp. 231–250.
Romanovich, A. (1999). Italiya v zhizni i tvorchestve B. K. Zaitseva [Italy in B. K. Zaitsev’s Life and Creative Work]. In Russkaya literatura. No. 4, pp. 54–67.
Rylova, A. E. (2014). “Kuda vedut vse puti…”. Italiya v tvorchestve Borisa Zaitseva [“Where All Paths Lead…” Italy in Boris Zaitsev’s Creative Work]. Ivanovo, Shuya, Izdanie Episheva O. V., Izdatel’stvo Shuiskogo filiala Ivanovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. 320 p.
Sebezhko, E. S. (2011). “Umnozhayushchiesya” otrazheniya: Zaitsev, Muratov, Bekford [“Multiplying” Reflections: Zaitsev, Muratov, Beckford]. In Tvorchestvo B. K. Zaitseva i mirovaya kul’tura. Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 130-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya pisatelya. 27–29 aprelya 2011 goda. Oryol, Orlovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, pp. 26–30.
Shilyaeva, A. B. (1971). Zaitsev i ego belletrizovannye biografii [Zaitsev and His Fictionalised Biographies]. N. Y., Volga. 175 p.
Stepanova, T. M. (2004). Khudozhestvennyi mir publitsistiki russkogo zarubezh’ya. Boris Zaitsev [The Artistic World of the Journalism of the Russian Abroad. Boris Zaitsev]. Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo oblastnogo universiteta. 327 p.
Stepun, F. A. (2017). Borisu K. Zaitsevu – k ego vos’midesyatiletiyu [Boris K. Zaitsev – for His Eightieth Birthday]. In Stepun, F. A. Bol’shevizm i khristianskaya ekzistentsiya / ed. by V. K. Kantor. Moscow, St Petersburg, Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ. 895 p.
Voropaeva, E. V. (1993). Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Borisa Zaitseva [The Life and Work of Boris Zaitsev]. In Zaitsev, B. K. Sochineniya v 3 t. Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura, Terra. Vol. 1, pp. 5–47.
Yarkova, A. V. (2002). Zhanrovoe svoeobrazie tvorchestva B. K. Zaitseva 1922–1972 godov. Literaturno-kriticheskie i khudozhestvenno-dokumental’nye zhanry [Genre Originality of B. K. Zaitsev’s Creative Work of 1922–1972. Literary-Critical and Artistic-Documentary Genres]. St Petersburg, Leningradskii gosudarstvennyi universitet imeni A. S. Pushkina. 211 p.
Zaitsev, B. K. (1922). Dante i ego poema [Dante and His Poem]. Moscow, Vega. 32 p.
Zaitsev, B. K. (1957). O sebe [About Myself]. In Vozrozhdenie. Paris, No. 70.
Zaitsev, B. K. (1999–2001). Sobranie sochinenii v 11 t. [Collected Works. 11 Vols.]. Moscow, Russkaya kniga.
