Article

Name: The history of the text of the dramatic adaptation of the old legend about Tsar Haggai by L.H. Tolstoy

Authors: Sizova Irina Igorevna

A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper studies the history of the text of the dramatic adaptation by L.N. Tolstoy of an old legend about the Tzar Haggai («The Tale of Tsar Haggai and How his Pride was hurt») on the basis of three well-known manuscripts of the dramatical work, which is kept in the Manuscript Department of the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy in Moscow (f. I, op. 1–3, handwritten consists of of 39 sheets). The comparison of the autograph material and its two copies with the author’s evidences in his diaries about some problems and the figurative system of «dramatic scenes» describing the impoverished nobleman life, as well as the analysis of expanded sources of the legend, which were used by the writer, make it possible to define more precisely the extreme chronological limits of the artistic interpretation by Tolstoy of the punished pride theme (1879 – 1880, 1886).

Keywords: history and criticism of the text, dating a manuscript, autograph, copy, stages of concept formation, work composition, plot sources, diaries and notebooks, epistolary heritage, textual, historical and literary commentary

Bibliography: