Alexey Zolotarev on Russian Classic Literature: Drafts for Speeches (Materials of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts)

Zykova Galina V.,

DSc in Philology,

Professor at the Department of History of Modern Russian Literature and

Contemporary Literary Process

Lomonosov Moscow State University

e-mail: gzykova@mail.com

The article offers some observations on the drafts for speeches on Russian literature, read in the 1910s — 1920s by Alexei Alekseevich Zolotarev (Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, collection 218, inventory list 1, item 44). These materials do not only clarify our understanding of Zolotarev’s educational activities, but also contain vivid and significant evidence of the peculiarities of the reception of classics in new historical circumstances. It is, for instance, the establishing of the tradition to celebrate the anniversaries of Pushkin’s death; the fact that in his speeches on Pushkin Zolotarev directly compares the twenties of the XIX and XX centuries; the fact that Zolotarev recognizes the ability to be ‘in motion’ as the most important feature of Pushkin’s work and personality; the recognition of the special significance of the year 1924 in Pushkin’s evolution; the choice of Pushkin’s most important lyrical texts that is specific to the 20th century (among these texts is, for instance, “Pod nebom golubym strany svoei rodnoi” (“Under the blue sky of her native country…”). Of significant interest is also, in particular, the speech plan for the fifth anniversary of A.A. Blok’s death, where Zolotarev calls him “the Prophet of the Third Testament”: for Zolotarev as the poet’s younger contemporary, therefore, the connection of Blok’s work with the religious ideas of Merezhkovsky seemed obvious.

Keywords: A.A. Zolotarev, reception of Pushkin’s work, the anniversary of Pushkin’s death, A.A. Blok, The Third Testament, Rybinsk Scientific Society

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