The Kingdom of Naples and Russia at the Beginning of the 19th Century: Based on the Correspondence of the Bulgakov Brothers

The article examines the activities of the Russian diplomatic mission in Naples in 1802-1808 based on the correspondence between brothers Alexander and Konstantin Bulgakov. In accordance with the tropological methodology of the historian Hayden White, tragic and novel metanarratives are distinguished in describing the relationship between the Kingdom of Naples, Russia, and the countries of Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. The narration of the events in accordance with the tragic plot reveals the confrontation between the hero and the world, Napoleon and the coalition of European states led by Austria, Britain, and Russia. At the same time, the transformation of the tragedy into the novel in historical terms presupposes a change in the established world order after the end of the era of the Napoleonic Wars, which the decisions of the Congress of Vienna consolidated in 18141815. The basis of the plot in the selected metanarratives is the life of Ferdinand IV, the king of Naples, and his family; Napoleon’s military actions in Italy; diplomatic and military assistance to Naples from Russia and the life of Russians in Naples and Palermo; the events of the Patriotic War of 1812; the messianic role of Emperor Alexander in the victory over Napoleon’s army. The influence of the actions of the allied forces in 1813-1815 and the decisions of the Congress of Vienna on the emergence of national liberation movements in Italy and the subsequent unification of the country is revealed. The spatial centers of the Bulgakovs’ epistolary works are Naples, Palermo, Rome, the capitals of four empires (Paris, Vienna, London, Petersburg), and related historical figures (King Ferdinand IV and his wife Maria Carolina of Austria (sister of Marie Antoinette, the French queen), Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte, Joachim Murat, Austrian Emperor Francis II, Russian Emperor Alexander I, Pope Pius VII, Admiral and Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Naples John Acton, Russian envoys in Naples and Rome A.Ya. Italinsky and sine, and others. The article analyzes the conceptual sphere and poetics of the “Neapolitan” text of Russian literature. In the letters, the image of Naples is presented through the situation of a meeting of Southern and Northern Europe, Naples and Petersburg, monarchy and republic, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, history and modernity. Naples is perceived as a special communicative space associated with the diplomatic activities of both brothers, with their circle of communication, and aesthetically with a private letter as a kind of an ego-document. The perception of Naples as an island state, as an “earthly paradise at the foot of a volcano”, as a city of the Lazzaroni and carnival culture brings the correspondence between the Bulgakov brothers close with descriptions of this city in Russian travelogues of the late 18th - first third of the 19th centuries. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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