THE IMAGE OF PUSHKIN RESERVE IN THE PROSE OF KONSTANTIN PAUSTOVSKY

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the image of Pushkin Reserve in the prose of Konstantin Paustovsky. Writer twice – in 1937 and 1954 – visited Alexander Pushkin’s museum-reserve; in the author’s legacy, one can single out a whole corpus of texts in which Pushkin’s passages appear. We have studied the key works of Konstantin Paustovsky about Pushkin Reserve – “Michael’s Groves” (1938), “Smoke of the Fatherland” (1944) and “Wind of Speed” (1954). These works have for the fisrt time been considered in the context of the “estate topos” one of the modifications of which, is the museum-estate. The image of Pushkin Reserve in Konstantin Paustovsky’s prose was not static; it had evolved over the years, absorbing changes in the life of the country, and the history of the museum-reserve itself, and, finally, changes in the writer’s perception of Pushkin’s places. From a place of memory of the past forever gone (“Michael’s Groves”), Pushkin Reserve turned into a place of eternal presence of the spirit of the genius (“Smoke of the Fatherland”, “Wind of Speed”). The turning point in this transformation was the Axis aggression against the USSR, which threatened the culture of the latter and sharpened awareness of the value of memorial sites.