Ivan Turgenev as a reader of Goethe's Faust (on Turgenev's personal library). Article 2

The article considers one of the most important aspects of the so-called "Turgenev vs. Goethe" problem, namely, the study of the reader's reception of Faust. For the first time, the writer's marks and marginalia are subjected to a holistic analysis on the pages of the tragedy (its first part) translated by Mikhail Vronchenko (St. Petersburg, 1844). In a purposeful comparative movement between the German original text and the Russian translation, Turgenev carefully brought to the surface not only the fact of their inconsistency, but also succinctly expressed his understanding both of the development of the plot and the main characters. He often offered his own options for conveying meanings into Russian, and at the same time he extremely valued Goethe's word. In Faust, which comes to the foreground of Turgenev's perception, it is important for the writer to highlight both the strength, will and independence of his desire for knowledge, and his rightness in this movement, necessity and regularity. Freeing the figure of the main character from the superficial definitions of the translator, Turgenev makes explicit the natural-philosophical synthesis carried out by the author, reads the special attitude of man to the natural world, which is also very important and tangibly included within the limits of the writer's reflection. Turgenev is interested in nature in Goethe's tragedy both as an element characterizing the hero and as a landscape component itself. With his notes, Turgenev contrasts the struggle and independence of the tragic personality with the quiet and meek existence of Margarita, who experiences the meeting with Faust in the advantage of feelings of love and suffering. From the moment when the image of Margarita enters the tragedy, the writer's attention is entirely focused on it. Until the end of the entire first part of Faust, Turgenev notes in the Russian text exclusively those places in which the translator incorrectly or inaccurately conveyed the features and shades in the image of the girl, as well as in the development of the line of her relationship with the main character. Thus, in Scene 8, Turgenev highlights Margarita's song about the Erlking, which tells about devotion and constancy of feeling until death. Turgenev makes a generalizing remark to the Russian translation of the ballad: "bad". The subject of Turgenev's special reflection was the scene in prison, where he noted four small excerpts from different remarks of Margarita, reflecting the mad girl's reaction to her fate; these are the stages of a tragic experience (memory of the crime, recognition of her lover, painful return to reality, reproach to Faust). The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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