Polemics of F. Sologub with Realism (F. Sologub and A. P. Chekhov)

Abstract

The paper analyzes the statements of Fyodor Sologub (both in periodical journalism and in belles-lettres) about the works of Anton Chekhov, examined in the context of the writer's ideas about the place of his own creativity in the literary process. There is a number of allusions and references to Chekhov’s name in the texts of Sologub that had not previously attracted the attention of researchers. Though Sologub had introduced Chekhov’s works into the circle of literature that followed the Tolstoy tradition, he at the same time argued with both authors. Having called Chekhov’s story A Man in the Case in his own novel The Petty Demon, Sologub set the vector for the perception of his own works. However, he was misunderstood by contemporary critics, who only compared Sologub and Chekhov, as well as other writers of a realistic direction, in respect to the contents of their works. Meanwhile, on the pages of Sologub's prose, a debate unfolds not only with the basic postulate of the “philosophy of hope”, but also with the form of the narrative. An analysis of the story The Troubled Day, whose characters openly debate Leo Tolstoy’s ideas, is carried out in the paper. One can conclude, based on it, that Sologub actually disagrees with both Tolstoy and Chekhov at the same time, in their approaches both to the topic of death and to creative method, meaning the point of view of an omniscient narrator, the latter being more polemical in relation to Chekhov than to Tolstoy.

DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2020.9.1.11