The story of Tsarevich Chlor: On development of the figurative and allegorical system in Dderzhavin's Ode to Felice

The article investigates the impact of Catherine II's fairy tale on the poetics of Derz-havin's Ode to Felice. Catherine II's fairy tale in its transformed folklore images affirms the Enlightenment ideal of the virtuous monarch and aims to bring up an honest, truthful, just and virtuous man. The fairy tale reflects Derzhavin's innovative position of Man as the subject of poetry. It is suggested that the creative dialogue between Catherine and Derzhavin be not limited to the fairy-tale and odic Felice, but go further to the innovative Derzhavin's poems "Birth of a North Crowned Lad". The success of Derzhavin's ode, with its ambiguous aesthetic architectonics, was predetermined by the fact that Ode to Felice was seen by the Empress as an immediate reaction to her own poetic identity, to Catherine-writer. It was not only the combination of praise and blame, odic laudatory pathos and satirical ridicule, but the exact assonance with the Catherine's 'poetic tone' that promoted Derzhavin to the Empress's poet-confidant. However, the fairy-tale orientation outlined the genre innovation: Derzhavin begins his work not from the position of an ode writer, but from the perspective of a man who, like Tsarevich Chlor, goes in search of virtues and asks the Khan's Wise to instruct him. The further semantic development is based on the contrast between virtues and vice, where the former is embodied by Felice-Catherine II. Derzhavin does not describe the situation of search or a difficult road to the desired goal. The lyric hero and readers can see the embodiment of virtue; therefore the statement lists all the advantages of the virtue-bearer and the condemnation of all the vices inherent to the lyrical hero - Mirza. In both cases, despite the poetic convention, Derzhavin tries to be as specific as possible, including the court, political and military realities of the time. At the same time it is important for him to keep close to the text of Catherine's fairy tale with its imagery and symbolism. Numerous allusions to the fairy-tale imagery (the menagerie of human vices, road, mountain, rose), the use of proper names as common (Grumpy, Lentyag), and compositional peculiarities make possible to consider the fairy tale not only as an odic pretext, but as an ontological universal primary text. Having created the household image of the crowned virtue for the first time, Derzhavin reformed the genre of ode that traditionally followed the abstract scheme of an ideal monarch. It was possible due to Catherine's previous efforts to be a real person within her family circle, a grandmother telling fairy tales to her grandchildren. This fairy-tale modality of the Empress's image was successfully developed by Derzhavin. However, Derzhavin combines the intimate and public pathetic shades in Felice's image. As an ode writer, he sees the main goal in praise and glorification of the monarch. It explains the semantic amplification in the final of Ode to Felice: the Empress's virtuous care of her subjects is equivalent to God's dispensations. Thus, Derzhavin's ode is a particular type of poetic expression that implies an intense interaction between the fairy-tale and rhetorical genres. Removing the motif of journey, Derzhavin, nonetheless, preserves the motif of search in the content, style and composition. The imagery and allegory of The Story of Tsarevich Chlor is reworked in the certain historical situation of The Ode to Felice, without losing the depth and effectiveness of its inherent moral and educational ideas.

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