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Abstract: The article studies the novella “Mamai’s Treasure Trove” by A. P. Klyagin, published in Paris in 1948. The author of the novella was not a professional writer, but under the influence of his acquaintance with Bunin, which occurred during the Second World War in Grasse, where Bunin and Klyagin were neighbors, Klyagin wrote two novellas: “The Land of Extraordinary Opportunities” (1974) and “Mamai’s Treasure Trove” (1948). The first novella was published with a preface by Bunin, the second was strongly influenced by Bunin’s lyric poetics, and the article is devoted to what exactly this influence consisted in. Firstly, Klyagin repeated the compositional idea of the novel “The Life of Arseniev”: the “Mamai’s Treasure Trove” is an emigrant’s story about his youth spent in Russia. As in the “The Life of Arseniev”, the main part of the text is devoted to the past of Russia, followed by an interruption of chronological time and a brief fragment of the emigrant life of the aged main character. Secondly, one of the central plots of Klyagin’s novella imitates Bunin’s style, repeating one of the invariant plots of the latter: the plot of unfulfilled love; in Klyagin’s novella it is the plotline of Zorin and Irina similar to the plot of the “The Life of Arseniev”, “Late Hour”, “Clean Monday” and other stories. And one more specific feature, borrowed by Klyagin from Bunin, is the rich folklore implication which saturates the artistic narration. The novella abounds with legends, depicts people’s rumors, and presents many fragments which are picturesque descriptions of the loci of the typically Russian life. Thus, in the final chapters of “Mamai’s Treasure Trove”, Astrakhan is depicted with its taverns, where Russian merchants make deals. The article argues that this description goes back to the “River Tavern” and other “Volga” and provincial stories by Bunin. The high value of Klyagin’s novella can be attributed to its proximity to Bunin’s lyrical poetics, as well as the unique autobiographic experience, contained in the text, and its historiosophical content into the bargain.

Об авторе (авторах) :

 

About the author(s) :

Elena V. Kapinos

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

(Novosibirsk, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4057-110X

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 26.09.2023; date of publication: 31.10.2023

References:

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