THE PASSING AND THE EVENT (TOWARDS 'PHILOSOPHY' OF THE RUSSIAN NOVEL)

• Authors: Pospisil I.
• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The author of the study deals with some specific features of Russian literature in general and the Russian novel in particular. One of them consists of the contradiction between the record of the passing and of the event, between calmness and motion, dramatic and descriptive structures, causality and juxtaposition. The contemporary narrative accentuates the contrast between the event and description The traditional narrative is the structure based on the event i. e. on something unexpected and extraordinary (Wolf Schmied). On the contrary, the typical feature of Russian literature is 'drowning in the stream of history', the effort to let history flow, not to intervene with demonic gestures in cosmic processes. This, of course, does not mean at all that Russian literature in general and the Russian novel in particular would not want to realize their demonic functions - Russian messianism and utopianism are quite famous. The origin of this feature goes back - as it is generally believed - to a cluster of oriental teachings, most probably to gnosticism and the traditions of Byzantine culture. The author presents several examples of these phenomenon in the works of several Russian and non-Russian authors frequently associated with eccentricity, strangeness and madness, e. g. I. Goncharov, N. Gogol, N. Chernyshevsky, F. Bulgarin, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, K. Capek, V. Nabokov and others.

Keywords

EN

ECCENTRICITY; MADNESS; RUSSIAN LITERATURE; RUSSIAN MESSIANISM; RUSSIAN UTOPIANISM

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovak Review. A Review of World Literature Research
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 14-23
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Pospisil I.

• I. Pospisil, Filozofická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06SKAAAA00972236