The tradition of N. Hawthorne in the work of I.S. Turgenev: “The Inn” and “The House of Seven Gables”

The article deals with the problem of Turgenev’s perception of works written by Hawthorn. For the Russian writer, the period between the 1840–50s turned out to be a time of crisis in artistic manner, which was associated with the writer's movement towards the genre of the novel and the complication of the type of writing. The novel The House of Seven Gables with its genre synthesis and bright socio-ethical orientation attracted Turgenev. Having become acquainted with Hawthorne's novel, he created the story The Inn based on the circumstances and traditions of Russian life. The closeness of the two works can be seen already at the level of titles, which express the essence of the aspirations of the heroes and their position in the world. In addition to the commonality of conceptual names, the similarity between the novel and the story is also manifested in their expositions. It was the first pages of The House of Seven Gables that served Turgenev as creative material and the center for the design of the dramatic story The Inn. There is an obvious similarity in the use of a contrasting description when depicting the past and present of the house of Colonel Pinchen and the “estate” of Naum Ivanov, with the help of which an ethical assessment of the events is built. The owners of these houses are equally dissimilar: on the one hand, an aristocrat, “an eminent and influential gentleman” with an “inflexible will”, on the other, a modest tiller of the land, but skillful and dexterous. Turgenev repeats this opposition in his own way, deducing the peasant, the smart peasant Akim and the practical and prudent tradesman Naum as the main characters. Turgenev and Hawthorne clearly emphasize social inequality, which develops into an ethical conflict, and both authors show that the differences in the position and status of the heroes are inversely proportional to their personal merits.