Information about the author:
Yanina V. Soldatkina
Yanina V. Soldatkina, DSc in Philology, Professor, Professor of the 20–21st centuries Russian Literature Department, Institute of Philology, Moscow State Pedagogical University, M. Pirogovskaya, 1, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1527-8123
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Abstract:
The article compares two historical novels devoted to the era of Peter the Great. Despite the fact that the novels Peter the Great by A.N. Tolstoy and Tobol by A.V. Ivanov are separated by more than half a century, their poetics and themes are characterized by similarities, including their appeal to a mass audience and their consideration of the empire as a national sociocultural project. For both authors, comparisons of Petrine Empire with European and Asian models and identification of peculiarities of the domestic imperial model, including issues of violence and service, are fundamental. For A.N. Tolstoy, empire is based on the concept of statism, of which Peter himself becomes the standard. In Ivanov’s Tobol, Peter functions as a judge and executioner, possessing the power to punish the opportunists who are plundering the empire.