THE ONEGIN PLOT HIDDEN IN BORIS SADOVSKOY’S PLAY “THE KNIGHT OF MALTA”

Abstract

The article is written in accordance with the plans for the preparation of the first scientific collection of works by B.A. Sadovskoy, which will include the corpus of his dramatic works. In the article we consider unpublished melodrama “The Knight of Malta”, the manuscript of which is preserved in the nominal Fund of Sadovskoy in RGALI. There are no serious research works about the play to date, it is not involved in scientific turnover, and meanwhile this work is interesting in terms of knowledge of the artistic evolution of the author, his life and creative destiny. Through an appeal to Sadovskoy’s metatext, in which the autobiographical factor is very significant, it is emphasized that in the “The Knight of Malta” there is an echo of Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, which became the most famous and conceptual in the Russian classical plot. It is also emphasized that this plot, read in the history of the relationship between the characters of the play Fyodor Lukoyanov and his bride Olenka, seems to be turned back to its source, predicting a fundamentally different resolution. In accordance with the autobiographical aspect of the play, the role of his “embodied conscience” Olga Chubarova (Sheremeteva) in Sadovskoy’s fate is described in detail.