Teatral'nost' v tvorčestve O. I. Senkovskogo

Abstract

The present study is dedicated to O. I. Senkovsky, (1800-1858) who was a professor of St. Petersburg University, an outstanding scientist, editor-in-chief of a popular magazine “Reading Library”, an influential literary critic, and a writer. This study provides a novel perspective on Senkovsky’s legacy, an attempt to comprehend his works through theatrical methods.Senkovsky’s literary masks express theatricality in his works. The name of his most famous pseudonym Baron Brambeus borrows deliberately from the Russian “lubok” literature in order to attract the attention of a general reader. It is Senkovsky’s bent for exotics, parody and paradox as the methods for his work that has defined the appearance of such pen-names as Baron Brambeus and others. The study analyses Senkovsky’s outlook on dramatic art and the theatre conception developed by him along with the requirements of theatre staging. The first volume of the “Reading Library” published an article by Senkovsky where he gives an overwhelmingly positive review of Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit”. Also Senkovsky’s critical works were affected by his theatrical methods. In Senkovsky's view, the Russian historical novel needed by no means to bean imitation of Western authors’ style. This concept of the Russian historical romance discovered by Zagoskin appeared to be in opposition to the concept of original Russian fiction. Baron Brambeus himself was a typical representative of the latter. The fabulous revelations of Baron Brambeus are very diverse and refined. Also his approach to Christian and Slavic demonology is completely different from that of his contemporaries’. “Satan’s Great Appearance” is composed totally on theatrical traditions where the author is to be found both as a spectator and as a participant in this “show”. In his later novel “Notes of the House-spirit” Senkovsky returned to this method again. Analysing Senkovsky’s theatre of love and death, the author investigates both his early works such as “A Woman’s Whole Life in a Few Hours” and his later works such as “The Turkish Gipsy”, and “Dreams of Love and Death”, in which the concept of theatre is expressed not as devilish pranks but as a special literary game of mystery that is defined by the novel’s genre and subject-matter.

Neuvostoaikana vanhaa venäläistä kirjallisuutta julkaistiin ja luettiin vain soveltuvin osin. Laajalevikkinen yleisöön menevä teksti unohdettiin helposti. Näin kävi myös kirjailija ja lehtimies Osip Senkovskille (1800-1858), joka julistettiin taantumukselliseksi ja unohdettiin. Varvara Fomitsheva tarkastelee väitöskirjassaan Osip Senkovskin tuotantoa ja pyrkii ymmärtämään hänen teoksiaan niissä käytettyjen teatraalisten keinojen näkökulmasta. Uusi venäläinen kirjallisuuden tutkimus pyrkii paitsi kirjailijoiden maineen palauttamiseen myös kirjallisen elämän todenmukaiseen hahmottamiseen.