The image of Khlopusha in Russian literature: The formation of a national type

The article examines the formation in the literature of the image of a prominent participant in the Pugachev uprising, Khlopusha (Afanasy Sokolov). It investigates the cultural prerequisites and mechanisms that ensure the transformation of a historical personality into a national type of hero. It is noted that for various reasons, primarily due to strict government restrictions when covering the uprising, Khlopusha did not become a hero of folklore, the image has an exclusively literary history. The article studies a wide range of works of Russian literature of the 19th - early 21st centuries, using the aspect method. It is established that Rychkov's "The Siege of Orenburg" became the first document containing historical information about Khlopusha and at the same time setting the direction of mythologizing his image. Rychkov evaluates the decision to release Khlopusha as fatal, which damaged government troops a lot, and exaggerates the degree of proximity of Khlopusha to Pugachev and his role in the seizure of Ural factories. Pushkin shows the hero more soberly in the "History of the Pugachev Rebellion", but in "The Captain's Daughter" he puts forward Khlopusha as a man combining robber prowess and folk wisdom. In the literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries (in an anonymous novel published by Manukhin, novels by Khrushchev-Sokolnikov and Auslander) the image of Khlopusha developes within the framework of the adventure genre. At the same time, objective facts (Sokolov's eventful biography, multiple escapes, a disfigured face, takeoff from a prisoner by Colonel) were consonant with adventurous vicissitudes. The development of the image in poetry (Yesenin, Kamensky, Gubanov) relies to the greatest extent on folklore, which loves and appreciates people's sufferers and defenders, and mythologizes Khlopusha. In a dramatic poem "Pugachev" by Yesenin, Khlopusha becomes the embodiment of the elements of popular protest and the aspirations of freedom. In the stories of the 1930s, the image of Khlopusha is given in connection with the theme of the mining Urals. In the epic canvases of Zlobin and Shishkov, the image is used differently: the former works in the aspect of romanticization and the latter in the aspect of psychologization. Both authors focus on the fractured character, depict him as miserable, adding a new feature to the image. At the beginning of the 21st century, Ivanov turned to the image of Khlopusha in the documentary and journalistic narrative "Pitchfork", but the historical truth in depicting the hero is largely displaced by the literary tradition, which can serve as evidence of the formation of the image of Khlopusha as a national type. It is established in the work that the literary Khlopusha combines the features of a rebel and a sage, his peasant origin is significant, his role in the uprising and proximity to Pugachev are strengthened. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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