Vasily M. Tolmatchoff, DSc in Philology, Distinguished MGU Professor, 1st building of humanitarian faculties, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, GSP-1, 119991, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1412-1084
The article argues with the traditional reception of Thomas Mann’s work in Russian literary studies. It focuses on the relationship between creativity and eroticism, which was of paramount importance to Mann. To describe and analyze this relationship, the article examines the autobiographical background of Mann’s works and the unique transformation of his personal view of the subject (in particular, his “Diary”, which is little known in Russia) into prose. Of particular interest in this regard is Der Zauberberg (1924). The symbolism of this novel, like the symbolism of Mann’s other programmatic works (“Tonio Kröger”, “Der Tod in Venedig”, “Doctor Faustus”), is based, according to the author of the article, on the writer’s creative sublimation of what had become obvious to Mann by the end of the 1910s, but which he did not wish to bring to public attention. “The Magic Mountain” appears in this light as a contradictory synthesis of the writer’s public image, his self-reflection, a Bildungsroman, a novel about the intricacies of Eros (this modality of prose was particularly in demand in the literary symbolism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries), and a novel about the artist (in the broad sense of the word). Making his way from a bourgeois to a kind of artist, a bearer of the philosophy of life, the hero of “The Magic Mountain” simultaneously goes through the stages of comprehending Eros as the foundation of existence. Certain Russian characters in the novel are undoubtedly related to the passage through these stages.
Th. Mann; “Der Zauberberg”; symbols of erotics; synthetic genre; main character as artist; function of Russian characters
30.11.2025
12.01.2026
Tolmatchoff, V.M. “On the Symbolism of Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg and Its Russian Dimension. Part One”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(72), 2026, pp. 157–175. (In Russ.)
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