Russian 20th-century versions of Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre: functions of narrative strategies

There are four versions of Ch. Bronte's novel Jane Eyre in Russia in the 20th century: in 1901 by an unknown author, in 1950 by V.O. Stanevich, in 1990 a republication of V.O. Stanevich's version with omissions restored by I.G. Gurova, and in 1990 a complete version by I.G. Gurova. We suppose that the novel is so popular in the 20th century not only because of it special content but also because of its narrative structure worked out in detail. The whole narrative organization in the novel is one confessional story of the central character of the novel about herself. There are innovative author's narrative strategies in the novel, which give this narrative special meanings. A special narrative organization was a topical problem in the culture and literature of the 20th century. Narrative problem is one of the most topical problems in the Russian studies of literature in the 20th century. There exist first research in narrative problems by V.V. Vinogradov, M.M. Bakhtin in Russia in the first half of the 20th century, Narrative Study by V. Shmid was published in Russia in the 21st century. There is a lot of research of the Bronte sisters' creative activities in the 20th century; these are works by D.B. Hardak, M.S. Mihaylova, A.A. Budagyan, M.P. Tugusheva, E.Yu. Genieva, E.A. Sokolova, and others. Yet, there is no special research devoted to the subject of narrative organization, narrative functioning and specific character of narrative strategies in the original text of the novel Jane Eyre by Ch. Bronte and its Russian versions, including those of the 20th century. So, the aim of this research is a special study of an appropriate translation and special functioning of narrative features in the original text of Jane Eyre and its 20th-century Russian versions. The novelty of this research is that an attempt is first made to determine the original Ch. Bronte's narrative strategies in the novel Jane Eyre, and a comparative analysis is first made of the original narrative features and their 20th-century Russian translations. For describing Ch. Bronte's narrative strategies in the novel three aspects are distinguished: narrative structure, autobiographical elements, the role of nature and weather description. The comparative analysis shows that all original narrative strategies are reproduced in V.O. Stanevich's and I.G. Gurova's versions of Jane Eyre. Exceptions are some features of sentence constructing and word choice, but this does not transform the original narrative structure. In the 1901 version, it should be noted that the translator reproduces the main idea of the narrative, namely, the dialogue between the author and the reader, but he abbreviates the original text, and this substantially transforms the author's narrative construction.

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