German Sources of the Italian Text in the Works of the Lyubomudry: W.-H. Wackenroder and V.F. Odoevsky

The article examines the issue of the German sources of the Italian text in the works of Russian authors, the Lyubomudry. This issue is insufficiently studied, but topics, images and motives of Italy constitute an important stage of the cultural dialogue between Russia and Italy, Russia and Europe in the 19th-century romanticism. In the creation of the imagological phenomenon of Italy, the Lyubomudry often focused on the philosophical and aesthetic conceptions of German romanticists, in particular, W.-H. Wackenroder. The aim of the article is the comprehension of such a "double" reception of Italy and Italian art in the works of V.F. Odoevsky, the leader of the Lyubomudry. The material of the study includes Odoevsky's prosaic works containing analogies with Wackenroder's aesthetic etudes translated by the Lyubomudry: novellas, stories, the novel Russian Nights. The methods of the study are comparative analysis and comprehensive text analysis. The study reveals common features of Wackenroder's and Odoevsky's art conceptions: the romantic duality of the world with aesthetic and religious accents, the central role of the image of an artist, the conflict between art and everyday life, the specificity of the aesthetic category of inspiration, the ideal of the synthesis of arts, the leading position of music in the system of arts. Italian Renaissance is important for both authors as an aesthetic retrospective utopia. The analysis of Odoevsky's novella Vicenzio and Cecilia with its numerous Italian motives demonstrates that the image of the portrait of Saint Cecilia is connected with the comprehension of Raphael's same-name painting in Wackenroder's etudes. Another Italian image influenced by Wackenroder's texts on Italian art is the image of Madonna shown explicitly or implicitly in several Odoevsky's works (Silphide, Improviser, etc.). The image of a genius involved in the conflict between spiritual and material realities is particularly important in the Italian texts of both authors; the comparative analysis of Wackenroder's story about the composer Joseph Berglinger and Odoevky's texts about artists containing numerous allusions to Wackenroder confirms it. In addition, the German romanticist's influence is noticeable in the organization of Odoevsky's fictional Italian space (images of the Alps, Saint Peter's Cathedral). Nevertheless, there are some significant differences between the Italian texts of Wackenroder and of the Russian author: Odoevsky does not idealize the aesthetics of Italian Catholicism, includes images of Madonna and Saint Cecilia in the philosophical issues and psychological collisions of the 19th century, comprehends the conflict between the artist and the material world in a different way. The study allows concluding that Wackenroder, with his romantic conception of art and interest in Italian Renaissance, affected substantially the imagological phenomenon of Italy in Odoevsky's works. In spite of some differences, this influence is obvious in the problem set and the poetics of Odoevsky's works about art and artists.

Keywords

Authors

References