Tatyana N. Krasavchenko, DSc in Philology, Chief Researcher, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Avenue, 51/21, 117418, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5479-7957
An essay “Notes on Edgar Poe, Gogol and Maupassant” (1929) and a short story “Water prison” (1930) clearly reveal existential and aesthetic vectors of works by Gaito Gazdanov, who belonged to the young generation of the first Russian émigré wave. His focus is not on Russia as in the works of older generation writers, but on a lonely person, who by the will of fate and history was removed from Russian cultural space and found himself in an alien world, in a difficult situation of cultural borderland. Gazdanov grounds “his tradition” of the late 1920 s – 1930 s in his essay, where he writes of his conscious aesthetic guidelines; while in the short story one finds the work of his subconscious “genetic literary memory” (Sergey Bocharov’s term), where his main paths are through Russian literature (Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky). As archive research shows, attempts to use poetics of French surrealism turned out inorganic for Gazdanov.
Russian émigré literature; existence; aesthetics; genetic memory of literature; grotesque; visions and dreams; surrealism; imagology.
15.08.2024
10.09.2024
Krasavchenko, T.N. “Existential and Aesthetic Vectors in the Early Prose by Gaito Gazdanov: ‘Water Prison’ and Other Short Stories”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 4(66), 2024, pp. 119–136. (In Russ.)
1. Bakhtin, M. Problemy poehtiki Dostoevskogo [Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics]. Moscow, Sovetskii pisatel’ Publ., 1963, 364 p. (In Russ.)
2. Bocharov, S. “О krovenosnoi sisteme literatury i eе geneticheskoi pamyati”
[“On Circulatory System of Literature and its Genetic Memory”]. Geneticheskaya pamyat’ literatury [Genetic Memory of Literature]. Moscow, RGGU Publ., 2012, pp. 7–44. (In Russ.)
3. Gazdanov, G. Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]: in 5 vols, ed. Krasavchenko T.N. Moscow, Ellis Luck Publ., 2009. (In Russ.)
4. Dienesh, L. Gaito Gazdanov. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo [The Life and Work], transl. from English by T. Salbiev. Vladikavkaz, Izd-vo Severo-Oset. Instituta gumanitarnykh issledovanii Publ., 1995, 304 p. (In Russ.)
5. Kabaloti, S. Poehtika prozy Gaito Gazdanova 20–30-h godov [Gaito Gazdanov’s Poetics of Prose of the 1920 s – 30 s]. St Petersburg, Peterburgskii pisatel’ Publ., 1998, 336 p. (In Russ.)
6. Kambolov, T.T. “Shtrikhi k portretu Gaito Gazdanova: pis’ma materi” [“Strokes to the Gaito Gazdanov’s Portrait”]. Dar’yal, no. 3(57), 2003, pp. 54–75. (In Russ.)
7. Matveeva, Yu. V. “Prevrashchenie v lyubimoe”: Khudozhestvennoe myshlenie Gaito Gazdanova [“Becoming a Favourite”: Gaito Gazdanov’s Artistic Thinking].
Еkaterinburg, Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta Publ., 2001, 100 p. (In Russ.)
8. Ehntsiklopedicheskii slovar’ syurrealizma [Encyclopedic Guide on Surrealism], eds. Balashova T.V., Gal’tsova E.D. Moscow, IMLI RAN Publ., 2007, 584 p. (In Russ.)