Apollon Maykov’s Tales from Russian History: from Idea to Implementation

Abstract

The article analyses the formation and development of the idea of the unfinished prose cycle Tales from Russian History by Apollon Maykov. The most important source of information about this part of the poet’s creative biography is considered his correspondence with Fyodor Dostoevsky, where the prerequisites for the origin of the cycle idea and the stages of its formation are revealed. One of the most expressive novelist’s letters to his friend is devoted to the discussion of the general idea of the cycle and its plots. It contains a conceptual reflection on the poem “as a precious stone, a diamond, in the poet’s soul” and highlights the most significant events in Russian history, according to the writer’s understanding. The plots of individual stories expressively described there by Dostoevsky originated the assumption that the writer was the author of the cycle concept and inspired Maykov to create it. However, a chronological analysis of the correspondence between Maykov and Dostoevsky in 1867–1869 allows us to gather and sequentially arrange facts reflecting the process of gradual development and final formation of the idea in the poet’s creative consciousness. It leads to the conclusion that the idea was formed in Maykov’s creative consciousness during an in-depth study of Russian history, prompted by his work on the translation of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. Dostoevsky took some part in shaping the key features of the content and the principles of the artistic form of the tales. He was not directly involved as the ideological inspirer. He participated as a friend, an interlocutor, and like-minded person, with whom Maykov shared the details of his own creative search and thoughts on pressing issues of Russian social life at that time, among which questions about the originality and identity of Russian history, and the relations between Russia and Europe were some of the most important.

Keywords

• apollon maykov
• tales from russian history
• fyodor dostoevsky
• epistolary heritage
• the development of the author’s intention