Italy in the historiosophical notions and works of M.N. Muravyov

The paper identifies the main motifs characteristic of the reception of Italian culture in the historical-philosophical and artistic works of M.N. Muravyov. The material for the analysis was a series of Muravyov's translations from Italian poetry, his statements about Italian poets, musicians, painters, and experiences of a synthetic understanding of Italian art and history. They all constitute an important layer of the writer's creative heritage, valuable both in itself and in the light of the larger and deeper interest in the Italian of Muravyov's student and apprentice K.N. Batyushkov. N.A. L'vov, an Italomaniac who traveled to Italy, acquainted Muravyov, who had never been to Italy, with Italian culture, in particular, with opera. In his letters and essays ("Regret for Youth", "The Feonin Cycle", etc.), Muravyov regularly mentioned Italian singers and authors of operas that he could hear in the capitals. L'vov also acquainted the young writer with Italian painting. The echoes of the Italian artistic impressions are heard in "Bernovo Letters", in the poem "You Look at Me Seduced by the Beauty of Art . . .", in the article "Arts in Italy", etc. Muravyov took interest in Italian literature in 1776, the result of which was a series of small translations from T. Tassot, G. Della Casa, G. Trissino and Metastasio. Later, in the 1780s, he made translations from Petrarca, G. Marino and L. Ariosto. The paper identifies receptive dominants in translation activities and in the comprehension of Italian poetry, especially the epic poem (Tasso, Ariosto) and "light verses". A conclusion is made about Muravyov's method that aimed to master not only a specific text, but also a certain style, a form of poetry, an art form. This method corresponded to Muravyov's cultural and aesthetic concept; within its framework, the art of the Italian Renaissance, the main subject of his interest, served as a direct model for art in Russia, in which its own Renaissance was beginning. The writer thought about the reasons, conditions and the course of the Italian Renaissance, seeing in it an obvious model for Russia ("Bernovo Letters", articles "Successes of the Human Mind", "Arts in Italy", "Russian Art").

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