A.P. CHEKHOV AND N.S. LESKOV: ON THE ISSUE OF CREATIVE RELATIONS

Abstract

. The article considers a problem of creative ties between A.P. Chekhov and N.S. Leskov. At the same time, attention is paid not only to the search for ideological-figurative cross-talk between the works of both authors and to clarifying their semantic significance, but also to the discovery of documentary evidence of A.P. Chekhov’s worldview closeness to the senior contemporary writer. In this regard, the analysis involves notes, statements, epistolary heritage of writers. The author of the article gives examples of the author’s appraisal word and self-assessments of the characters in Leskov’s texts, noting this as a characteristic technique in Leskov’s stories, in his novels “At Knives” and “Nowhere”. In Chekhov’s stories (“On the Way”, “House with a Mezzanine”), gradually following more complex functions of this technique are traced, which becomes not only a description of the status of the heroes, but the theme of their dialogue, which is the subject of reflection of individual characters, as well as more widely included in the zone of the author’s reflections. In the program works of Chekhov, the author’s assessment of the status of heroes is differentiated, which can be both critical and sympathetic (“Lights”, “In a Ravine”, “Student”, etc.).