ON THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN ‘ARZAMAS’ AND THE “YOUNG ARCHAISTS” IN THE GREAT HISTORICAL TIME

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to study the sources of the discussion between “Arzamas” and the “Young Archaists,” two ways of the Russian noblemen’s enlightenment. Methodology and Approach. It analyzed the texts that had motivated the “Arzamas” ideas if the noblemen’s freedom (the G. Derzhavin’s odes after the Catherine II’s tales, the A. Pushkin’s poems of 1810-20s, concentrating the themes of “Arzamas”), and the texts of their opponents (V. Kuchelbecker, K. Ryleev, K. Katenin, F. Glinka). The article references the works on the main points of the confrontation (J. Lotman, G. Lesskis, V. Altshuller, T. Akimova, etc.) Results. The analysis had shown that the opposition of the two groups had reflected two meanings of the freedom in Russian enlightenment. The “Young Archaists” had inherited from the French revolution the ideas of the roman republic and their classicist forms. The apology of the social responsibility of the poetry had pulled the “Young Archaists” towards the conservative “Colloquy of Lovers of the Russian Word.” “Arzamas” had rehabilitated “light poetry” as the demonstration of the noblemen’s freedom in the Nikolay I’s state. Theoretical and Practical Implications. The author managed to find the connection between the two poetical movements at the beginning of the 19th century with the general logic of the mental development of the noblemen’s culture at this time.

Keywords

• enlightenment
• citizen’s freedoms
• noblemen’s freedoms
• «Arzamas»
• young archaists
• hedonism