Doctoral defence: Andrei Solovev “Проблема “Россия и Европа” в русских литературных путешествиях (Фонвизин – Карамзин – Достоевский)”

On 18 November at 14:15 Andrei Solovev will defend his doctoral thesis “Проблема “Россия и Европа” в русских литературных путешествиях (Фонвизин – Карамзин – Достоевский)” (“The Issue of Russia and Europe in Russian Literary Travelogues (Fonvizin, Karamzin, Dostoevsky)”).

Supervisor:
Emeritus Professor Ljubov Kisseljova, University of Tartu

Opponents:
Professor Maria Plioukhanova, University of Perugia (Italy)
Associate Professor Tatiana Smoliarova, University of Toronto (Canada)

Summary:
“Russia and Europe” is one of the key issues for Russian literature, criticism and opinion journalism of the Modern Times. In namely this chronological period – from the 18th to the early 19th centuries – the attitude to Europe started to become a subject of depiction. This is particularly characteristic of travelogues (the terms “travelogue, “travel literature”, “travel writing”, “Reisebericht” are used synonymously). The current thesis observes only these of them where the authors, first, disclosed this issue as the theme of their text and, second, used the model of the “Russian in Europe”. The attention is centred on the evolution of this model and it’s versions.

The thesis concentrates on the precedential texts – Letters from France by Denis Fonvizin (1778), Letters of a Russian traveller by Nikolay Karamzin (1791–1801) and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1863). The works of Fonvizin, Karamzin and Dostoevsky are three most notable examples of constructing various narration models: “the disappointed traveller”, “the naive traveller”, “the Russian traveller”, “the Russian European”, and these models, as shown in the thesis, although greatly influential in Russian literature, have almost not been studied.

The observation of the model of “Russian in Europe” and these of its varieties, which form the theme of the current thesis, was carried out in historical and literary perspective, chronologically within each model. As a result, this made it possible to show that, within the framework of the selected chronological period, the model went through the main stages of evolution, which were summed up in the text concluding the period – Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.

The model of the Russian European sums up the development of those models in Russian travel writings that were studied the thesis. From the model of “encounter with Europe”, follows the pragmatic component – the phenomena of European life are described for the purposes of internal development of Russia set by the Russians themselves. It is drawn closer to the model of disappointment expressed in Letters from France by the general tone of judgements and the accentuated folksiness of the language. The “naive traveller” gave the “Russian European” the formula for contact with the reality. The works targeted to studying the national character reveal particular interest in self-determination.

The specific feature of the Russian travelogues viewed in the thesis dealing with the issue of Russia and Europe lies in the fact that they contain reflections not only about themselves but also on how Russians relate to Europe.

It is important to underscore another conclusion of the thesis. The narrator’s image in Fonvizin’s, Karamzin’s and Dostoevsky’s travelogues is directly related to the pragmatics of their creation, which forms its readership. For Fonvizin, it is discontented nobility, for Karamzin – the public who has received European education and for Dostoevsky – “Russian Europeans” provoked to polemics.