Article

Name: Cryptography as a Feature of the Poetic Structure of A. P. Chekhov’s Play “Three Sisters”

Authors: Lyudmila P. Yakimova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

Abstract:

Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” is one of the most demanding creation in the Russian literature and for this reason preserves in its poetics a lot of mystery, unexplored character of which explains the difficulty of its hermeneutics history.

The key point of the article is the main features of poetically meaningful embodiment of the magic character of number, which manifests in designation of the present time as well as the cosmic time, and also in cultural allusion of the number “three”, represented in the play title “Three Sisters”.

In semiotic aspect of the secret meaning of Chekhov’s text the author of the article analyses the frequent reiteration of the idiomatic expression “it does not matter” in the play “Three Sisters”, which allows see the depth of the intertextual space of Russian literature from Dostoevsky to Platonov, Leonov and so on.

The way of the motif and intertextual analysis allows extend the idea about the role of Chekhov’s writings in the text-forming process of Russian literature in 20th century. Motivational plot concept of “three sisters” finds the new poetically semantic content in many of writings of the “post-Chekhov’s” time, confirmation of which became the following literary production: F. Sologub “Petty Devil”, A. Remizov “Sisters of the Cross”.

Keywords: Chekhov, “Three sisters”, present time and cosmic time, the poetics of number “three”, idiomatic expression “it does not matter”, the Chekhov’s text in Russian literature, F. Sologub “Petty Devil”, A. Remizov “Sisters of the Cross”

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