Suicide Motives in Russian and European Literary Tradition

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify the underlying implications and motives of suicide of Russian literary characters of the classical era against the backdrop of Western European literary tradition. After analyzing the issue concerning the diversity of the suicide motives of heroines in Turgenev's novelettes ("L'Antchar", "An Unhappy Girl", and "Klara Milich"), we came to the conclusion that the principles of artistic interpretation of heroine's action, committing suicide, were found in Russian literature as early as in the late ХVIII century. These principles were developed and established in the kind of debate of that era. The article describes the difference between the suicide motives of heroes by J.-W.Goethe and N. M. Karamzin, allowing us to talk about the diversity of the Russian and Western characters conduct in similar situations. For Goethe's characters, the death is a transition to a state, in which personal communication of characters becomes impossible. Therefore, their near-death communication transforms into "farewell forever". Russian heroines (novelettes of Karamzin & Turgenev) are rapid in their decision to terminate their terrestrial life in order to accelerate their appointment with beloved after crossing over, outside of socially conditioned context. They are driven by belief in the inevitability of such appointment. Their suicide becomes not so much a way to interrupt their contacts with an imperfect world, but to speed up the appointment with their sweethearts in the other, more favorable circumstances. The authors believe that the diversity of suicide motives of Russian literary characters (Karamzin & Turgenev) as compared with the European tradition is associated with the diversity of world perception concept, world architectonics, in which their characters commit an act. Traditional perception of this subject in the novelettes of N. M. Karamzin and I. S. Turgenev met the religious and ethical principles, predominant in Russian cultural space.

“A Feast in Time of Plague” by A.S. Pushkin in the Context of Russian and European Literary Traditions

“…In any case, the sustainability of such a kind views of Russian literature of the XIX century finds clear confirmation in the analysis of the works of M. Y. Lermontov (Nikolaev & Shvetsova, 2014) and I. S.Turgenev (Nikolaev & Shvetsova, 2015), which we have presented in our earlier publications.…”