Afanasy Nikitin "Going beyond three seas"
“Going beyond the three seas of Afanasy Nikitin” (see its full text) - a description by a 15th century Russian man of his journey to far India.Afanasy Nikitin was a…

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strip tease
"Woe from Wit" and "Misanthrope" by Moliere
Of foreign works, the comedy by Moliere “Misanthrope” was especially important for “Woe from Wit” (see the summary, analysis and the full text). Studies by Professor Alexei Veselovsky showed that…

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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”…

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chronographic order

“Drone”, Novikov magazine

Of the Russian prints of the beginning of the reign of Catherine II, the most serious was Novikov’s journal “The Drone”, which was published in the capital from May 1769 to April 1770. In this organ Novikov began to flaunt the vices of modern society, exposing them to the living faces of contemporaries, probably well-known and because it is easy for everyone to recognize.

Catherine resolutely rebelled against this — her satire in “All things” was “in a smiling way” and did not allow certain individuals to be convicted — she did not invade the state, even public life, and was of a general nature, as a result of which she was distinguished by vagueness. Continue reading

“Woe from Wit” and “Misanthrope” by Moliere

Of foreign works, the comedy by Moliere “Misanthrope” was especially important for “Woe from Wit” (see the summary, analysis and the full text). Studies by Professor Alexei Veselovsky showed that the image of Alceste was reflected in Chatsky: in the work of Griboyedov, the love story of the main character of “The Misanthrope”, Alceste, was repeated. Finally, the similarities are observed in some trifles. Of course, such a borrowing doesn’t make Griboedov’s comedy non-independent: if the form and some details were borrowed, then its content remained deeply Russian. 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 sensitive soul — he appeared in the Alexander’s epoch as a public figure and publicist. Karamzin wrote and published a whole series of articles reflecting the living interests of our time in the journal “Vestnik Evropy” (1802-1830), the editor-in-chief of which was. Continue reading

Bitter "Chelkash"
The hero of Maxim Gorky’s story “Chelkash” is Grishka Chelkash, an old wounded man, an avid drinker and a clever, courageous thief and smuggler in one of the southern Black…

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Goncharov "Zion of agony"
In his article “Zion of agony”, I. A. Goncharov begins the characterization of the comedy “Woe from Wit” (see the summary, analysis and full text) with an indication of its…

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