Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva - Comparison
Probably in the distant future and for our era will find an elegant synthesis. Contradictions will become dull, contrasts will be extinguished, variegation will be reduced to unity, and a…

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strip tease
Two crosses of Konstantin Batiushkov
This year marks the 230th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov (1787–1855) and the 200th anniversary of the release of his only book, the two-volume book Experiments in…

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Bulgakov "Crimson Island"
But - yet, how much more I read in the house of E.S. [Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova]. At first I reached for the “Crimson Island” (1927) - a brilliant satire, to…

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chronographic order

Beaumarchais The Marriage of Figaro

Exceptional success fell on the second part of the Beaumarchais comedy trilogy – “Mad Day, or the Marriage of Figaro”. (For the first part – see “The Barber of Seville” – analysis.)

Before us is Figaro again. But now it is no longer the Barber of Seville, arranging the love affairs of a young aristocrat. Managing the castle of Count Almaviva, he now comes into conflict with his master. Continue reading

Bogdanovich “Darling”

The content of “Darling” is taken from La Fontaine’s prose work “The Love of Psyche and Cupid” (“Les amours de Psyché et de Cupidon”). The content of this work, in turn, was borrowed by the author from Apuleius’s novel The Golden Ass.

In the work of Apuleius, the main idea is that the soul, immersed in sensuality, matter afterwards, thanks to the initiation into the sacraments, is purified and transformed. The soul of a woman (Psyche), having lost its original purity, should as a slave of Love (Venus) undergo a series of severe tests in order to ascend to the divine bridegroom – Eros (Cupid, Cupid). Continue reading

Rose and Cross block

The ideological and philosophical basis of the drama is a characteristic of the Bloc of the 1910s the idea of ​​the many-sided nature of life, the idea of ​​merging its opposing principles. Its main motive is connected with this – the dual unity of Joy-Suffering, a motive that is also reflected in its title, where “rose” should mean pleasure, joy of life, and “cross” – suffering that fell to a person or voluntarily accepted by him. The same motif is organically intertwined with a number of images of the multicolored world that surrounds the hero (Bertrand) and the heroine (Isoru): inviting mysterious, gloomy sea distantly, invoking a new and deep meaning to their dull being. Continue reading

“European Herald” - Karamzin magazine
Creativity Karamzin in the years of the reign of Alexander I is of considerable interest. A sentimentalist writer, an individualist, essentially his temperament, who was first interested in mainly his…

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Bulgakov "Crimson Island"
But - yet, how much more I read in the house of E.S. [Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova]. At first I reached for the “Crimson Island” (1927) - a brilliant satire, to…

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