Article

Name: Novellas on the “Tragic Meaning of Love”: Yury Trifonov’s Another Life and Ivan Turgenev’s A Quiet Spot

Authors: Ivan O. Volkov, Emma M. Zhilyakova

Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract:

The article comparatively analyzes Yury Trifonov’s novella Another Life (1975) and Ivan Turgenev’s Calm (1854) (“Затишье” [“Zatischje”], other translations “A Quiet Backwater”, “A Quiet Spot”), exploring the tragic nature of love as a universal ontological experience. Despite being separated by nearly a century, both works share an ethical and philosophical orientation, portraying love as a force capable of revealing the true structure and internal contradictions of human existence. In both novellas, love goes beyond a profound emotional experience, becoming a means of understanding the Other and interpreting the heroines’ lives, death, loss, guilt, and related existential categories. The environment – provincial county life in Turgenev’s text and the Moscow everyday milieu in Trifonov’s – intrudes upon the intimate sphere of the characters and shapes the context in which their feelings develop tragically. The study also highlights the typological similarity between the male characters, Sergei Troitsky and Petr Veretyev, both representing variations of the “reflective intellectual,” a figure whose instability disrupts the harmony of love relations. Conversely, the female protagonists, Olga Vasilievna and Marya Pavlovna, embody inner wholeness and tragic intensity, forming the moral center of each work. Intertextual motifs (Pushkin’s The Upas Tree, The Stone Guest, Who Knows the Land Where Heaven Shines in Turgenev’s novella, and philosophical-historical reflections in Trifonov’s) are essential in constructing the metaphysical framework through which love is represented. The comparative analysis reveals that both authors depict love as a contradictory force, destructive yet creative, leading the heroines to a deeper understanding of life in its existential, spiritual, and ethical dimensions. The comparison of Turgenev’s and Trifonov’s works identifies stable models for representing tragic love in Russian literature, tracing their development from the 19th to the 20th century.

Keywords: Yury Trifonov, Ivan Turgenev, Another Life, A Quiet Spot, love, tragedy, psychologism

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