Reading Pushkin in ‘countercurrent’

Abstract

The interview with V. Zubareva discusses her innovative monograph that analyzes A. Pushkin’s oeuvre from the viewpoint of A. Veselovsky’s ‘countercurrent’ theory. Her principal objective is to prove that Pushkin’s texts (Eugene Onegin [Evgeny Onegin], Tales of Belkin [Povesti Belkina], The Queen of Spades [Pikovaya dama], Boris Godunov, Little Tragedies [Malenkie tragedii], and The Tale of the Dead Princess [Skazka o myortvoy tsarevne]), far from being imitations, constitute an original synthesis that shapes the ‘literature of reality.’ Veselovsky’s methodology offers a new view of the nature of borrowings and helps identify an artistic response to them, which is determined by a national literary tradition. The key message of the interview and the book alike is that Pushkin, while utilizing elements of Western genres, creatively transforms them in the sense of the ‘countercurrent’ of the national tradition and his own aesthetic agenda. This resulted in a new artistic paradigm: the ‘literature of reality.’