2017-№3 (56) Article 10

A.N. Pashkurov

Russian National Myth  in A.P. Sumarokov’s drama “Pustynnik” (“The Hermit”) P. 67-75.

UDC 821.161.1-21.09«1757»

The article deals with originality of Alexander Sumarokov’s experiment in the genre of drama il-lustrated by the dramatist’s little known play “Pustynnik” (1757). Genesis and evolution of the writer’s ideological and philosophical standpoints in this dramaturgic work are in the focus of our attention. Whereas Sumarokov inherits in a certain manner the traditions of hagiographic poetics, his primary task is to show the system of new Russian national mythology. The key pillars of national myth are: the con-cepts of Duty, Benefit, and new civil religiosity. As compared with other plays of Sumarokov-dramatist, the internal action, rather than the external one, prevails in drama “Pustynnik”. The basic psychological collisions in the plot of a play are associated with the problem of moral choice. However, in contrast to the Old Russian ethical ideal, now this issue is relevant to a new ideology of a personal career profit. One starts to perceive the hero’s retirement from the world less as a moral deed, than as a conscious transition to a higher level of service to society and state. Therefore both forsaking the vanities of the world and wealth is propagandized as necessary and useful civil charity. As a result, Sumarokov depicted one of the first stages of the process of spiritual crisis of a new Russian society, which tried to substitute the super temporal moral values in the “man – God” system for a dialogue-union of ideology of a successful per-sonality and a secular state.

 

genre of drama, hagiographic traditions, national myth, secular ideology, Sumarokov.  

 

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