Characters of M. Aldanov's short stories: investigating the Bakhmeteff Archive materials

The article is devoted to a number of materials from the Bakhmeteff Archive, connected with M. Aldanov's works. Among the briefly reviewed materials are Aldanov's correspondence with various persons, fiction and non-fiction texts as well as newspaper articles about Aldanov and his works. The texts from the Bakhmeteff Archive are of different consistency varying from complete texts to one random page. Studying drafts vs. published variants leads to some observations in the poetics of the character. The material is four short stories: "Greta and Tank" (1942), "The Field Marshal" (1942), "Number 14" (1948) and "The Exterminator" (1948). The most significant text transformations are change of lexis used to describe a character and introduction of new narration levels. Another method presented in the article is detailing the character semantics using texts of different genres - short story ("Number 14") and essay ("Mussoliniana" (1941) and "Dongo" (1949)). "Mussoliniana" creates an intravitam portrait of the Italian dictator and provides a forecast of his further miserable destiny. "Number 14" suggests artistic reconstruction of Mussolini's last minutes, after the History has already sentenced him. "Dongo" is a travelogue where the author follows the path of the "Number 14" main character, Mussolini, fleeing from Italy. The sphere of private life is insubstantial in "Mussoliniana", the author is more concerned about the political and rhetorical demythologization of the Italian leader while "Number 14" becomes more complicated and the last days of Mussolini discover his consciousness and person's inner tragedy. Marginalia notes from the "Greta and Tank" draft unlock the author's self-reflection and irony localized in the main character of the story. The draft title "Zhenshina s udavom" (A lady with a constrictor) becomes an ironic object in the final variant of the text. Unpublished texts from the Bakhmeteff Archive highlight the author's interest in definite historical figures like Count Witte from the cognominal essay. The method of using characters from unsuccessful essays and stories is traced due to the discovery of the drafts of "Swastika - Hammer and Sickle (or Dreams of Men)" (1941), a piece strictly prohibited from publishing by the author's will. All that means that working with material from an archive can allow a researcher to make clear the author's creative and communicative intentions.

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