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The Modernist poetics of Leo Tolstoy's Master and Man [Khozyain i rabotnik]
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2021-2-53-75
Abstract
The study is devoted to one of Leo Tolstoy's later short stories, Master and Man [Khozyain i rabotnik]. The article traces its links to other ‘stories for the people,' describes its reception by Tolstoy's contemporaries and deals with the problem of the artistic and didactic agenda that was so relevant for Tolstoy. The authors also examine Tolstoy's preliminary drafts. The article contains an exhaustive analysis of the two main characters, their relationship and correspondence with time and space, daily routine and abstract existence. Tolstoy is presented as a pioneer of methods typical of 20th-c. literary Modernism, which were utilised by A. Bely, A. Remizov, and V. Nabokov. According to the scholars, the story offers an unequivocal illustration of the main thesis of Tolstoy's later religious and philosophical outlook that the material world is a false and illusory form of life, while true life is only achievable through spiritual being.
Keywords
Supporting agencies: The study has been funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), project № 18-011-00553a.
About the Authors
I. Y. Matveeva
Russian State Institute of Performing Arts
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Inga Y. Matveeva - Candidate of Philology.
34 Mokhovaya St., St. Petersburg, 191028.
I. I. Evlampiev
St. Petersburg State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Igor I. Evlampiev - Doctor of Philosophy.
5 Mendeleevskaya Line, St. Petersburg, 199034.
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Review
For citations:
Matveeva I.Y., Evlampiev I.I. The Modernist poetics of Leo Tolstoy's Master and Man [Khozyain i rabotnik]. Voprosy literatury. 2021;(2):53-75. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2021-2-53-75
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