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Boyarskaya Tatyana Yu.,
Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor,
Senior Lecturer of the French Language Department
St. Petersburg State University
e-mail: boyard05@gmail.com
This article is devoted to the little-studied project of P. Mériméе “False Dmitry” (1852–1853). Marked by the author’s intention aimed at revealing the true origin of the imaginary Dimitri, the project is embodied in prose and in a dramatic form, which is dissonant with the rest of the writer’s essay. The project consists of three parts (a review of N.G. Ustryalov’s essay “Tales of Contemporaries about Dmitry the Self-Styled”, dramatic scenes and an essay), two of which undergo genre transformation in the process of creation. Thus, a review of the work of a Russian scientist turns into a historical essay. Dramatic scenes take the form of two author’s versions, differing in title, final remark and composition. The voluminous informative essay about False Dmitry does not undergo a genre and compositional transformation. At the same time, Merimee considers his project a failure and loses interest in it. The analysis revealed the reasons for Merime’s appeal to the story of the impostor, revealed the motives that prompted her to present it in different genres and genre variations, and found the grounds for abandoning the project.
Keywords: Mériméе, motivation, author’s intention, dramatic scenes, historical essay, False Dmitry
The work was carried out within the framework and on the funds of the RNF grant (RSF_SRG_2023 – 2 from 19.01.2023 “Reception of Cossacks in P. Merimee’s essayistic work: 2024 stage 2. Goncharova T.N., Boyarskaya T.Yu., Samusenko E.O., Urazbakhtin R.I. (01.01.2024–31.12.2024). The author would like to thank RNF for financial support in creating this article
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