ТЕККЕРЕЙ ПРОТИВ НИГИЛИЗМА: ЛИТЕРАТУРНАЯ ПОЛЕМИКА И РОМАННАЯ ФОРМА ВО ВЗБАЛАМУЧЕННОМ МОРЕ А.Ф. ПИСЕМСКОГО

This article considers the structure of Aleksey Pisemsky’s novel The Troubled Sea (1863), which ruined the literary reputation of its creator, but which proved uniquely farsighted in light of the development of the Russian novel in the second half of the nineteenth century. In many ways, the novel form created by Pisemsky anticipated the prose of famous late-nineteenth-century authors, including Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Analysis of The Troubled Sea shows that the form arose as a result of Pisemsky’s reception of narrative techniques from English literature, and his transformation of those techniques in the course of his literary polemics with radical nihilists. While polemicising against the nihilists’ denial of the aesthetic autonomy of art, Pisemsky appropriated certain of their creative principles, such as directly addressing real events and people and harshly criticising the authorities. Evidencing this are examples from the novel of various invective episodes based on real historical events. It is likely that Pisemsky considered William Makepeace Thackeray – who was hugely popular in Russia – as the model for his polemical novel. Adopting Thackerayan literary devices, Pisemsky created his own distinctive novel form, one which put in question the boundaries between novel and historical life, between fi ction and reality, between narrative text and periodical journal context.