Samodelova E. A.

Bobyl and Druzhok by S. A. Yesenin: the main character as a social type  (issues of historical specifics of the writer’s folklorism) P. 70 –86.

UDC 821.161.1-32.09«19»

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2024.82.1.008

Abstract. The relevance of the study lies in the attention to the bobyl (a poor peasant) as a disappearing social type. This word is usually understood in a figurative sense, which prevailed at the time of writing Yesenin’s story, tentatively dated 1915. The purpose of the article is to analyze data from dictionaries and encyclopedias, historical and ethnographic monographs, geographical and religious books, school textbooks and anthologies, research articles, works of fiction of the 19th–20th centuries, and Russian folk tales in order to identify different interpretations of the image of the bobyl. The texts about bobyl peasants were written by S. V. Maximov, I. G. Pryzhov, D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Nikitin, M. Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. N. Tolstoy, E. V. Chestnyakov and other authors. The paper looks at this titular character of Yesenin’s short story, and this type of person for the first time becomes a subject of historical and philological analysis. As a result of the study, conclusions are drawn about “bobyl” as a historism. Yesenin was interested in this because it had been a phenomenon of the Russian Middle Ages. In the past, such peasants were to be found in the poet’s native place, in a neighboring village that then became a volost center. This allowed Yesenin to use his image of Bobyl in a timeless context, typical of traditional folk tales. Thus Bobyl turns out to be the main element of Yesenin’s folklorism and sets a vector for studying the complex genre of the work (named a story in the subtitle), but showing features of a literary fairy tale. Also, his Bobyl (written with a lowercase letter) is mentioned as part of a negative comparison in another story, Yar, written in the same 1915. This character never appears in Yesenin’s other works. Consequently, it is characteristic of the early period of the writer’s work and is rooted in the context of rural life, deeply felt by Yesenin in childhood and youth in the Ryazan Province and transferred into this piece of fiction.

 

Keywords: Bobyl and Druzhok, the story Yar, Kuzminskoye village in Ryazan District, social type, Yesenin’s folklorism.

 

 

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