Alexandre Pushkin`s Reserve and “Reserve” by Sergei Dovlatov: on peculiarities of the Country Estate Text and the Country Estate Myth

Abstract

The theme of manors, their history and the mechanisms of generation of the manor text, has long been one of the prioritized areas of the humanities. At the same time, it is obvious that the history of estates and the history of texts generated by them are phenomena of different order. More often there are cases when the estate text, although fueled by the writer's own estate experience, cannot be revered as an imprint from reality (at least indirectly). The paper deals with a rarer incident: a text, literally generated by the estate, which accumulates two different eras with their inherent conflict mentality. An example of such a clash of epochs within the manor text in Western literature is the novel by M. Kundera “Slowness”, and in Russian literature — the novel by S. Dovlatov “Reserve”. The peculiarity of Dovlatov's text is that his character is visiting a museum, consecrated by the cult name of Pushkin, where both the estate and Pushkin have become the object of a constantly reproducible myth. Dovlatov`s destruction and parody of Soviet mythology, which in some way profaned the name of Pushkin, in turn generates an anti-myth, adopted by the new age. The hermeneutical history of the “Reserve” generates curiosity, clearly not provisioned by the author. Through the efforts of criticism, the nihilistic text is interpreted as a translator of the main themes, motifs and values of Russian literature. As a result, Dovlatov's anti-myth, which heralded the end of the country estate era, becomes in the further reception of the novel a cultural omen of Modern times. With his text dedicated to the reserve, in which all kinds of cliches and ideologems are harshly ridiculed, Dovlatov gave birth to new ideologems.