The image of Naples in A.S. Pushkin's creative consciousness. Article 4.Mythopoetics of Pushkins Neapolitana: the legend of Queen Joanna in the Russian literatureof the first half of the 19th century

The concluding paper of the cycle is devoted to one ofPushkin's unaccomplished works, a poem about Cleopatra, which enters the first posthumouspublication of Egyptian Nights as the second improvisation of the Neapolitan poet. Pushkin specifiedthe source of the plot of his unaccomplished poem, namely, a remark on Cleopatra made by the Romanhistorian Aurelius Victor. However, this source motivates Pushkin's interpretation of the plot and theimage only partially: the evidence provided by Aurelius Victor does not contain the most essentialelement: it does not inform the reader that Cleopatra demanded deathly payment from her admirers fora night spent with her, that is that the terrible plan was entirely the initiative and the stipulationproposed by the queen who thus was the direct cause of death and indirect murderer of her lovers.Cleopatra's theme is further developed in Pushkin's poetry on a reconstructed associativebackground of his personal Neapolitan myth. The first edition of the poem dates back to 1824, which isregarded as the first nascence of the Neapolitan motifs in the poetic reflection and Pushkin's texts whenthe political prototype of Naples results in such text fragments as the "Motionless guard was dozing ona regal threshold …" and "What have you been sent for and who sent you?" (1824), followed bylandscape lyrics filled with intensively developing leitmotif "Who saw the land …" Cleopatra's secondedition was written in 1828 when Pushkin's poetical fragments display the poet's interest in theNeapolitan local text for the second time ("I know the land: there on the shore…//the sea is splashingin solitude…" (1827), «Who knows the land where the skies are bright... (1828), "Go on! I amready…" (1829)). Finally, in 1835 Pushkin comes back to this plan for the third time, having made twosimultaneous attempts to create framing prosaic narration in the text fragment "We spent the eveningin a summer residence …" and in Egyptian nights where the plotline "Cleopatra e i suoi amanti"becomes the theme offered to the Neapolitan improvisator. Thus, the myth of Cleopatra is correlatedwith the Neapolitan myth at least chronologically in evolution of the poet's plan.All stages of Pushkin's work on the poem are accompanied by the motifs of BakhchisaraiFountain. The architectural and historical monument, the Bakhchisarai residence of the Crimeankhans, the tomb of the khan's beloved and a local legend about passionate love and untimely deathconnected with these monuments of the past became a plan and the starting point of BakhchisaraiFountain. The similar filiations of ideas can be found in the pretexts of the Neapolitan travelogue ofthe Russian literature at the turn of the 19th century in narrations about abandoned uninhabited palaceof Neapolitan Queen Joanna the First. The historical legend connected with the tomb narrates aboutroyal love and death, motivated by architectural features and the location of the building. It isnoteworthy that all three literary versions of the historical legend, namely, a collective myth of Russiantravellers about Queen Joanna, Pushkin's interpretation of the Bakhchisarai legend and AureliusVictor's evidence concerning Cleopatra reveal obvious similarity of plot motifs and the ways oftransformation of the historical legend in the literary text.The evolution of the motifs of the legend of Queen Joanna in the Russian literature can be trackedfurther in lyrical and epic texts of M. Lermontov, E. Rostopchina and A.N. Maykov.

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