The Siberian fragment of V.A. Zhukovsky and Tsesarevich Alexander's travel across Russia in perception of Russian writers of the 19th - early 20th centuries: From business account to autobiography

The article investigates the perception of the well-known Siberian journey made by VA. Zhukovsky and Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolaevich. The author draws on the newspaper Severnaya pchela, works by P. A. Pletnyov, K.K. Seidlitz, P. Zagarin, A.N. Veselovsky, K.M. Fofanov, Ellis (L.L. Kobylinsky) and B.K. Zaitsev to demonstrate that the dynamics of the texts devoted to this journey shows the formation of one of the pivotal literary images of Zhukovsky as an educator and mentor. The first comments on this unprecedented journey began to appear in Russian periodicals almost simultaneously with the Tsesarevich's travel across Russia. The later interpreters of the Siberian travelogue of 1837, as a rule, revealed their individual receptive approaches. This tendency was in many respects stipulated by the necessity to include the journey of the Grand Duke accompanied by the poet into a general concept of Zhukovsky's life and creative activity. Thus, some interpreted Zhukovsky's journey as 'tsarist pedagogics', others as a 'sentimental travel', and yet others as the poet's farewell to Russia. The interpretation of separate episodes of Zhukovsky's biography as well as general principles of his life description demonstrates the receptive universal law of the 'invented tradition', when the past is shown in the light of the present. During the 19th-20th centuries, the Tsesarevich's visit to Siberia in the company of his poet-mentor was interpreted in various contexts. For Zhukovsky's contemporaries the journey meant a symbolic assignment of an isolated territory to the imperial heartland. Later estimates of the Siberian chapters emphasized the amnesty of Decembrists: this plot was peripheral in the receptive comments of the 1830-1850s. In the end of the 19th century, the similar journey around country made by another heir to the throne Nikolai Alexandrovich (future Nikolai II) served as a historical and cultural background for K.M. Fofanov's literary interpretation of the royal voyage. In his poem "Fascinated Prince" the poet connected the travelogue typical for the literary 'Sibirica' with the romantic ballad in Zhukovsky's style. Finally, in the mid-twentieth century the "Siberian text" of the travelogue became an argument in the discussion of Russian emigrant writers I.A. Bunin and B.K. Zaitsev about stylis-tics of depicting similar events and literary genealogy. The dynamics of the receptive tradition of the travel of 1837 showed that different epochs focused on various details of this famous journey. Thus, Zhukovsky's contemporaries aimed to present the fact to a wide reading audience and to systematize the authentic events of the journey. Later biographers included the "Siberian travelogue" of the poet and his royal educatee's in their original concepts of Zhukovsky's life and creative activity.

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