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The Passing and the Event (Towards "Philosophy" of the Russian Novel) |
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Ivo Pospíšil |
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The author of the study deals with some specific features of Russian literature in general and the Rusian novel in particular. One of them consists in the contradiction between the record of the passing and of the event, between calmness and motion, dramatic and descriprive structures, causality and juxtaposition. The contemporary narratology accentuates the contrast between the event and description (in Russian: событийность -- описательность). The traditional narrative is the structure based on the event (событие, Ereignis), 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 realise their demonic functions -- Russian messianism and utopism 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. Čapek, V. Nabokov and others. |
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Keywords: Passing and Event. Calmness and Motion. Causality and Juxtaposition. Drowning in the Stream of History. Russian Messianism and Utopism. Eccentricity. Strangeness. Madness. |
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