ПРАВОСЛАВНЫЕ ОСНОВЫ РУССКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ КАРЕЛИИ XX–XXI ВЕКОВ
ORTHODOX FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN KARELIA DURING THE XX–XXI CENTURIES

Summary/Abstract: Russian literature of Karelia genetically goes back to the traditions of the Russian North, the largest center of ancient Russian book culture, Old Believer culture, and hagiography. Investigating the influence of the Orthodox tradition on Russian literature in Karelia during the XX and XXI centuries is a pressing issue, reflecting the growing interest of modern philology in regional literary developments. This study offers a novel perspective, as it addresses a gap in existing research by providing a dedicated analysis of the overall trends of Orthodox influence in Karelia’s Russian literature throughout these periods. Throughout the history of Karelian literature, Christian imagery and motifs have been woven into regional traditions and stable topoi of local texts. Early twentieth-century poetry inherited the spiritual poetic traditions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia. The creative work of N. Klyuev, which became central to the new peasant poetry, is closely linked to the Olonets region. In the literature of the late 1910s and 1920s, biblical symbols were employed to depict emerging realities; the revolution was often equated with the Coming of Christ, and the Christmas chronotope was revitalized (see S. Sherdyukov, D. Moshinsky, A. Kunyaev, among others). Analyzing texts from the Soviet era reveals that Christian images often functioned implicitly – either as archetypes embedded in the text or within specific contexts – or were desacralized altogether. In the second half of the 1960s, scholars revisited concepts of historical prose genres, with D. Balashov and V. Pulkin exploring themes of historical memory and the role of the Orthodox Church in Russian history. Ekphrastic depictions of temples and Christian motifs re-emerged in the poetry of the 1970s and 1980s (as seen in the works of I. Kostin, A. Avdyshev, and Yu. Linnik). During the period of the “spiritual renaissance”, literature shifted from primarily historical themes and eschatological images toward a focus on the human spiritual experience and the idea of Orthodox conciliarity. Special attention is given to the transformation ofthe northern Russian hagiographic tradition (V. Pulkin, N. Vasilyeva, D. Novikov, etc.), as well as to the genres of psalm (D. Veresov, S. Zakharchenko) and prayer (A. Vasilyev).

• Details
• Contents