A Bride and a Bear: the Transformation of Pushkin’s Plot in Nikolai Klyuev’s “Song about the Great Mother”

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Classification – name: Literary studies
Author: Elena I. Markova
Pages: 510–530
Publisher: A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IWL RAS Publ.)
Rights – description: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 (СС BY-ND)
Rights – URL: Visit Website
Language of the publication: Russian
Type of document: Research Article
Collection: Sergey Esenin, His Contemporaries and Successors: Сollective Мonograph to the Аnniversary of N.I. Shubnikova-Guseva
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/978-5-9208-0718-2-510-530
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/PNLUTR
Year of publication: 2023
Place of publication: Moscow
PDF
Markova, E.I. “A Bride and a Bear: the Transformation of Pushkin’s Plot in Nikolai Klyuev’s ‘Song about the Great Mother’.” Sergey Esenin, His Contemporaries and Successors: Сollective Мonograph to the Аnniversary of N.I. Shubnikova-Guseva, ex. ed. Natalia V. Kornienko. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2023, pp. 510–530. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/978-5-9208-0718-2-510-530

Information about the author:

Elena I. Markova, DSc in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, Head of Literary Studies Sector, Institute of Language, Literature and History, Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushkinskaya, 11, 185910 Petrozavodsk, Russia.

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract:

The article is based on the comparison of the wedding plot in N.A. Klyuev’s epic song and S.A. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.” In the “Song...” the wedding issue deals not only some private life but rather the whole country. If the wedding takes place or not implies another question: will Russia be safe or not? Will it exist or not? That is why Pushkin’s Tatiana as a canonic image of a bride in Russian literature fully matches Klyuev’s idea of epic songs describing faith issues and Russia’s path to salvation. Tatiana is perfect, because she passes the temptation and stays a true Christian. Klyuev’s Parasha also stoically with stands the trials. Just like in the folk tradition the wedding doesn’t mean the wedding feast only but some special wedding rituals, both texts describe anticipation of love through its tragic end. Comparison of both characters and events is multilevel (pragmatic and symbolical): names, appearances, behaviours, places, choices of loved ones, an encounter with a bear etc. A comparison of both texts helps to understand better the symbols and events in the “Songs…” and gives new clues to the great novel.

Keywords: N.A. Klyuev, “Song about the Great Mother,” A.S. Pushkin, “Eugene Onegin,” epic, novel, wedding plot, faith, way of salvation.

IWL RAS Publishing

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A Bride and a Bear: the Transformation of Pushkin’s Plot in Nikolai Klyuev’s “Song about the Great Mother”

Elena I. Markova

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