Polemic rethinking of works by L.N. Tolstoy and A.I. Solzhenitsyn in David Samoylov's poem "Strufian"

The article analyses the connection between the problematics and poetics in "Strufian" (1974) by David Samoylov with the works of L.N. Tolstoy and A.I. Solzhenitsyn. When referring to the storyline Tolstoy used in "The Posthumous Notes of the Monk, Fedor Kuzmich" (1905), Samoylov raises two essential issues: first, the issue of the historical responsibility of the ruler (Alexander I of Russia's storyline), and, second, the issue of teaching how to live and of social utopism (Fedor's storyline). It is commonly known that Samoylov used Fedor's narration to pamphletically reword Solzhenitsyn's views expressed in his Letter to Soviet Leaders (1973). While tracing the history of the creation of the poem, the author shows in the article that this vein was prepared by Samoylov's previous ten-year-long thinking about Solzhenitsyn's social role and the nature of his talent. In Samoylov's diaries, we often come across Solzhenitsyn's name, in connection with an attempt to characterize a definite personality type, into which Samoylov placed Tolstoy as well. That is a Russian idealist and advice-giver, who combined his publicist talent with believing in the possibility of initiating social changes through discourse. Samoylov, as one can see, did not believe in the possibility of changes occurring "inside" the rulers, and that is why he proposed an interpretation of a legend, where the ruler did not undergo an ethical and moral revolution. It is interesting that at first, before reading the Letter to Soviet Leaders, Samoylov was more captured by the storyline of disappearing or leaving, just before some historical events and, at the same time, of moral self-improvement, of opposing a revolutionary (external) and an ethical (internal) way, than by the storyline of "teaching how to live". In between the creating the conception of the poem and its turning into a writing, Samoylov familiarized himself with August 1914. Reading the first part of the famous saga prompted Samoylov to start making "Questions" to the author of One Day. Despite keeping out of public discussions, the fact of coming to the realization of his own attitudes towards the range of ideas Solzhenitsyn outlined at the time when The Red Wheel was still a work in progress obviously remained topical for the poet, and was probably expressed in "Strufian" within the storyline of Alexander I. Samoylov turned to the problem of the responsibility of a ruler to his people, the problem that was lacking in "The Posthumous Notes of the Monk, Fedor Kuzmich". Chapter 9 of the poem tells about the Decembrist uprising that was being prepared. That may be viewed as a direct indication of the catastrophe that the motherland was going to face. In his article about Solzhenitsyn, published in 1991, though it had been prepared and edited since 1971, Samoylov also raised the problem of a ruler's responsibility to the people, and argued with Solzhenitsyn, who "forgave" General Samsonov's self-willed departure from life.

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