W. Scott's poetry in W. KUchelbecker's Diary

The article shows the way the particular Russian reader, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, perceived W. Scott's poetry in the 1830s during his imprisonment in Sveaborg. The figure of Kuchelbecker was chosen due to the fact that Kuchelbecker is one of the brightest representatives of Russian literary intellectuals. His perception of W. Scott's poetry in the above-mentioned period characterizes the peculiarities of perception of W. Scott's creative works in Russia quite accurately, because despite his forced isolation in Sveaborg Kuchelbecker follows the main trends in the development of the Russian aesthetic thought. The writer's Diary serving as the main data for this study reflects the steps in Kuchelbecker's conversance with creative works of W. Scott. Kuchelbecker's Diary at the beginning of the '30s is a unique phenomenon of the Russian literature in the context of reception of W. Scott's literary works in Russia. In this period of time reading and writing were Kuchelbecker's main activities at that time. On his diary pages Kuchelbecker accurately documents every day he refers to W. Scott's oeuvre, he also describes his emotions and intimate feelings induced by this or that literary piece by W. Scott. As well as most of the readership in Russia, Wilhelm Kuchelbecker was fascinated by W. Scott's personality and his oeuvre. He actively gets acquainted with all Scott's poetical works accessible to him at that moment: poems ("The lay of the last minstrel", "Rokeby", "The Lady of the lake", "Marmion", "The Lord of the Isles", "The vision of Don Roderick"), short poems ("The noble Moringer", "Thomas the Rhymer", "Farewell to the Muse") and translations by W. Scott ("William and Helen", "The Wild Huntsman"). W. Scott's poetry not only solaces Kuchelbecker's life in prison but also serves as inspiration as well as the source of information for his own creative works. The article shows the connection between W. Scott's and Kuchelbecker's oeuvre and analyses the way W. Scott's poetic works and literary method influenced the epigenetics of Kuchelbecker's creativity. Similar to Vasiliy Zhukovsky, who also took into account W. Scott's oeuvre, with his attempts to shift from poetry to prose Kuchelbecker came to the genre of the narrative-lyric poem (or verse novel). Later on Kuchelbecker would realize the necessity to move on to Realism, which would forestall the change of literary methods in Russian literature.

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