«Приключения студентов»: Историко-авантюрный роман в творчестве С.Р. Минцлова

Abstract

S. Minclov’s reputation of the “guardian of the old traditions” in the historical prose was a firm one. It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the century such a reputation was even harmful for him, as it created an image of an imitator and literary mastodon. Yet, the emigrant environment was characterized by the rejection of the new literary tendencies and the author’s devotion to the classical tradition was perceived positively. In the eyes of the critics, S. Minclov’s uniqueness and refusal to take part in writers’ unions and creative societies as well as the author’s old-fashioned literary views made him a man of the past. Despite this fact, the Russian émigrés readership was likely to anticipate each new work by S. Minclov with a great deal of interest. By the end of the 1920s S. Minclov became one of the most popular and most published authors of the Russian Diaspora abroad. Belonging to the generation of the early representatives of the Silver Age (according to the time when his personality and talent formed) and being at the heart of the literary salon and group activity, S. Minclov, however, expressed his very indifferent if not hostile attitude towards the modernist searching. In his memoirs, the author’s opinion of these theosophical and aesthetic achievements is very peculiar and ironic. By the 1930s, the historical prose was largely determined by the province. In this both historical and literary context, S. Minclov’s imitative reputation and old-fashioned approach experienced change. In his works, features of the so-called “classical” mythology started to appear (at least, that is how the Riga press perceived it). Of course, S. Minclov’s ideological attitude towards fortuity and chance also played an important role in the formation of this new reputation as well as the author’s position. The theme of fortuity and chance has become a major identity marker signifying belonging to a particular historiosophical school. The historical adventure story as a genre has specific formal organizational semantics: in it unlike actually historical novel, the spatial organization, and historically last time prevails (as a rule, this time is rather far separated from the present, for some centuries, at least, being perceived as the irrelevant hronomodela which often isn't restored with a datirovochny accuracy; the historical Romance philology is more attached to concrete date, time of a known historical event whereas the historical and adventurous genre is limited to "hint" for a while) is "condition" of a historical background. The historical and adventurous genre in Sergey Mintslov's creativity is presented by the novel "Adventures of Students". This Roman didn't receive a due assessment in literary criticism, is still little-known work therefore relevance of its studying is obvious.