AN ECHO OF BORIS SADOVSKY’S ARTICLE “THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE” IN HIS STORY “AMALIA”

Abstract

The work examines issues of B.A. Sadovsky’s recently introduced article “The Philosophy of Marriage”. The author emphasizes that its background includes facts from Sadovsky’s yet little-studied biography of the early post-revolutionary years, when, seriously ill and confined to a wheelchair, he faced the pressing problem of starting a family. It is revealed that the article’s conceptual idea – the key to a happy marriage is a wife’s greatest virtue, tact—is reflected in the structure of the story “Amalia”. A fundamentally new interpretation of this story accenting its context is proposed, that allows us to assess the very foundations of the author’s worldview. It is shown how, in accordance with the aforementioned idea of “The Philosophy of Marriage”, the figurative system of “Amalia” parodies Onegin’s plot. The study accentuates the theoretical aspects of the relationship between external and internal plot in the work of fiction. The material of this article will be considered in the preparation of Sadovsky’s complete works and his scholarly biography, which is being carried out by the author, as well as in a research essay on Sadovsky as part of “The New Academic History of Russian Literature” project, being developed by the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (The Pushkin House).