Article

Name: The Poetics of the “Novel in Letters” of B. Pasternak and M. Tsvetaeva (Article 1)

Authors: Vladislava O. Nurkhametova

National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section The Plot, Motive, Genre

Abstract:

The correspondence of M. I. Tsvetaeva and B. L. Pasternak, which has a vivid literary character, is one of the unique documents of the history of Russian literature of the 1920s–1930s. Since its full publication in 2004, it has repeatedly become the subject of multiple scientific research projects: interpretations of texts and their fragments were proposed, and biographies of poets were built through the correspondence. However, the poet-ics of the entire corpora of their letters as a whole was not considered in detail. The final paper offers an analysis of the content and poetics of the poets' letters to each other, as well as traces and illustrates the peculiar myth that develops in their correspondence, which we designate as a “novel in letters”. Further, it is considered how the main themes and motives of correspondence were reflected in the work of both correspondents on the basis of the key motives of this “novel”.

Keywords: B. Pasternak, M. Tsvetaeva, correspondence, novel in letters, life-creation, non-meeting

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