Reception of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective novels in Russia: setting the problem

In the given article the problem of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective novels reception in Russia is under study. Writings of the English author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) are of particular interest in the context of the history of Russian-English literary relations development from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Despite the fact that Doyle wrote works of various genres his name is frequently associated with detective literature. The purpose of the given research is to demonstrate the most important periods of his detective novels popularity on different levels of reception, such as translation reception, interaction and revision of his writing basis in works of Russian authors, attitude of critics to detective literature and Doyle as a writer in particular. When studying literary preferences in Russia, it is necessary to notice that at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the growth of literacy among democracy population literature with a detective as a main character successfully solving crimes was spreading quite rapidly. In this period of time the detective became a fully complete genre. This genre was gradually gaining its followers and admirers among clerisy. However, when studying the history of the given genre it is possible to single out a range of contradictions and controversial attitudes of both critics and readers. The detective genre gained its special popularity at the beginning of the 20th century. The socio-aesthetic phenomenon of detective literature attracted attention of a range of authors, such as S.M. Eisenstein, K.I. Chukovsky and others; nevertheless, there is no common generally recognized detective genre theory. Some authors called it an intellectual crossword, others a mixture of literature and playing, the third an industrial novel from the life of CID employees. However, elements of a detective are an integral part of many books of "Great Literature", for instance, fiction of F. M. Dostoevsky, O. Balzac, Ch. Dickens and others. As the given research is devoted to the reception history of detective literature written by Arthur Conan Doyle, it is necessary to emphasize that reception study of detective novels of the English writer is considered to be rather significant from the point of view of aesthetics, poetics and typology of the genre development. In the frame of the given project it is necessary to reflect principles, nature and evolution of detective novels reception by Russian writers and translators, pointing out the main periods of detective writing reception. Each period of the studied receptive history has its own specific character and logic of development. All these aspects correspond to the interest of modern literary studies to the problems of comparative studies, theory and history of translation, receptive aesthetics, multicultural dialogue, interaction between Russia and England within the framework of popular and classic literature, capital and regional literature.

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