National literature in a foreign language: V.A. Zhukovsky's corpus of German self-translations and their reception in Russia and abroad

This article was prepared with the support of RHSF (project № 16-04-50012) and Russian President Grant (MD-4756.2016.6). In V.A. Zhukovsky's corpus of German self-translations one can trace some regularities and the creative evolution of their author. Firstly, almost in all blocks of the self-translation heritage created for Grand Duchess Aleksandra Fedorovna, for Goethe, his followers and contemporaries, as well as for a broad circle of German readers and "few" Russian-speaking friends abroad and in Russia, two sides connect in the self-positioning of the author: the poet allies with the court, the tutor of the royal family, and reflects on the fates of the Motherland and the West. Zhukovsky's transition from Russian to German is not connected with a fundamental change of his subjectification manner but seems a predictable step on the way of approaching the German world. Secondly, like in the Russian-speaking heritage, in self-translations poetic texts and prose that appeared in the last years of Zhukovsky's creative work are separated. Chronologically poetic self-translations discovered for the moment begin and conclude with experiences in the genre of the ballad - from "Svetlana" and "Aeolian Harp" in 1818 to "Prisoner" in 1852 - and show the basis of Zhukovsky's creative life as well as reveal his creative credo. Published poems, particularly the collection Easter Gift, are the result of a conscious representative selection of poetic heritage pieces with a clear orientation on the final self-positioning. A different way of subjectification is typical for the last edition compiled by J. Kerner which included only "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf'. The tale had to be perceived as a full statement addressed to the German reader who was interested in the experience of other nation's literature traditions. Zhukovsky's self-translated prose has an epic character, at that substantial questions about faith, world and man develop through the actual historical-cultural context and receive a corresponding response from contemporaries. The female image becomes central in Zhukovsky's German poetry both in artistic embodiment and actual realization in the biographic context. The images of Svetlana and Minvana evolve in greatly theological images of the Angel and Madonna; and the majority of addressees are the dearest students and foster children of the poet - Masha's sister A.A. Protasova-Voeykova, Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, Countess Samoylova's niece O. Bobrinskaya, the wife of E. von Reutern, Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna. This leads to the conclusion of a special status or a special functional-semantic field of German language usage in Zhukovsky's poetic communication which is able to express appropriately the significant religious-philosophic concepts of his spiritual Romanticism and "esoteric love" as a model of creative life.

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