Aleksandr Nikitenko as the Reader and Critic of Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov

The article discusses Aleksandr Nikitenko’s new understanding of Ivan Goncharov’s novel Oblomov (1859). The reception of the iconic text of Russian literature by Goncharov’s contemporary is presented for the first time. It is done on the material of Nikitenko’s personal book collection, which is stored in the Rare Books Department of the Research Library of Tomsk State University. The personal relationship between Nikitenko and Goncharov, which has not yet been a research object, provides valuable material for studying the historical and literary process of the mid-19th century and the aesthetic searches of the Russian writer Goncharov. Oblomov’s Dream as an ideological explanation of Goncharov’s vision of Oblomovism attracts the attention of Nikitenko as a reader. He made a huge number of notes in this fragment of the novel. Goncharov’s aesthetics, based on the philosophical category of synthesis, the interdependence of romantic and realistic principles within the framework of the literary text, was an important component of the aesthetic and historiosophical position of Nikitenko, who proclaimed these ideas. Nikitenko’s notes demonstrate the reader’s attention to the problem of “childhood” in philosophical and artistic terms, which is why marginalities associated with the folklore principle and the idyllic atmosphere in Oblomov’s Dream are important. Reading Oblomov, Nikitenko pays close attention to the period of the early development of humankind, characterized by the flourishing of the epic. He, as a reader, is interested in the problems of the upbringing of a modern novel’s hero, a Russian gentleman, who is surrounded by “others” (Stolz, Olga). Nikitenko’s marginalia in Goncharov’s novel indicate his interest in issues related to the national character. In the literary text, the idealist philosopher Nikitenko notes an epic component manifested in the image of Oblomov’s life, a patriarchal one. In the artistic vision of the hero, Nikitenko notes a synthesis of criticism with the ideal. Thus, he reveals a dialectical position regarding the protagonist of the novel. Attention to the image of Stolz as the next stage of human development in its social manifestations and functions is presented in the form of pencil marks. However, judging by the last marks in the novel, it becomes obvious that heroes such as Oblomov, who are the essence of a national character, are not adapted to reality that requires an active hero, but at the same time they are the embodiment of the best features of the Russian national character.

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