Article

Name: Yu. N. Chumakov and Russian versicle novel

Authors: Yu. V. Shatin

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences; Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University

Abstract: In this article the author makes an attempt to estimate contribution of famous philologist Yu. N. Chumakov to research of text and genre specific of «Eugeny Onegin». The author believes that the result of this research is mostly determined by the method of the scientist, who preferred to focus on microelements of the text and only after it to extrapolate results on macrolevels and large structure blocks. Yu. N. Chumakov has shared the principal ideas of structuralism, but has understood the limits of this method. His method has resembled the research of Germanic scientist V. Izer who has considered the poetry as the reaction to global modifications of the world and the man. Analyzing «Eugeny Onegin», Yu. N. Chumakov convincingly showed semiotic features of text borders, related to their density and marking. As the result, the scientist was able to establish principle of dynamic balance of two independent and inceparable worlds of the author and the hero, and also to identify of original principle of ending formation which exists as completeness in the form of incompleteness. Yu. N. Chumakov has interested in the genesis of the Onegin stanza and its correlation with the genre of the versicle novel. At the beginning of 1980 years he has suggested me to find so called quasi- stanza of the Onegin stanza in early Pushkin’s works. As result I have discovered the insertions of the traditial stanza of ode – ababcccdeed – and one case of future Onegin stanza. Meanwhile in 1977 year English scientist J. Smith in his PhG thesis “The stanza Forms of Russian Poetry from Polotsky to Derzavin” has discovered stanza used before Pushkin’s novel. Its author was Peter Shalikov, who has devoted his ode to Alexander I (1813). This ode resembles Pushkin’s Onegin stanza with the different arrangement of clausals: aBaBccDDeFFeGG instead of AbAbCCddEffEgg. The observation of J. Smith allows to propose that ode stanza but not sonnet has become the sourse of Onegfn stanza. That is why the author of this article considers that the spread of Shalikov’s stanza allowed solving a number of new problems in original genre which connected the Onegin stanza with unregular stanza, fragments of prose and empty places (“equivalents of text – term by Tynaynov). This thesis confirms the reflections by Yu. N. Chumakov about the free movement of word masses in Pushkin’s versical novel. According to the researcher, principles of text structure of «Eugeny Onegin» created stable genre model, which influenced the works of poets of XIX–XX centuries, from «Eugeny Velsky» of M. I. Voskresensky to «Spectorsky» of B. L. Pasternak. In this article the author examines Chumakov’s analysis of the poem “Mladenchestvo” (“Infancy”) by Vjacheslav Ivanov.

Keywords: poetic novel, density, marking, genre model, Onegin stanza

Bibliography:

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Smith J. The stanza Forms of Russian Poetry from Polotsky to Derzavin. Thesis submitting for degree of Ph.G of University of London. 1977.

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