Mamin-Sibiryak’s Traits from the Life of Pepko: Problems and Poetics

Abstract

The article focuses on the main problems and structural features of Traits from the Life of Pepko, an autobiographical novel by D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak’s. The authors analyze the topic of a writer’s formation, the narrative structure of the novel (more particularly, the relations between the narrator and the autobiographical character), the topic of character doubling, expressed in the text by means of the character of Pepko and the narrator’s evoking the image of the Other. Additionally, the authors reconstruct the context of the 1880s generation Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak belonged to.

Keywords

• autobiographical novel, narrative, writer's self-consciousness, 1880s generation, topic of character doubling, i and the other, confession novel