A. CHEKHOV AND V. KAVERIN: THE TWO MONTIGOMOS

Abstract

The present article covers the results of the comparative analysis of the short story "Boys" by A. Chekhov and "The Two Captains" by V. Kaverin whose protagonists both go by the same symbolic name Montigomo the Hawk Pounce. Similar treaits in the images of Chechevitsyn and Sanya Grigoriyev are singled out, similar for the two works motifs of escaping and reading are highlighted, quotational allusions are located. Despite the fact that the appearance of Montigomo in Chekhov's text is traditionally attributed to the historical realia (the writer's contemporary had a quite similar nickname), the article suggests to look for possible prototypes of that name's in the classical adventure literature. The author suggests that the typological similarities between the texts are rooted not only in the reception of the Native American novels in the 19th-century Russia but also by the style of A. Chekhov influencing the formation of V. Kaverin's artistic principles that are emphatically oriented to the literary tradition.