The plot of "return to heaven from hell" in Vladimir Sharov's novel Return to Egypt: A dialogue with Gogol

The article investigates the forms and functions of the reception of Gogol's myth about the messianic purpose of his creative work in Vladimir Sharov's novel Return to Egypt (2013). The relevance of the chosen research perspective is determined, firstly, by the interest of modern literary studies in the problems of receptive aesthetics and poetics, and secondly, by the intensive study of the dialogue between contemporary literature and the 19th-century classics in general, and with Gogol's creative legacy in particular. The receptive approach forming the basis of this research is conceived with reliance on theoretical and methodological foundations focused on the problem of dialogue and understanding (the phenomenology of the individual reading act - R. Ingarden, W. Iser; the hermeneutics of the collective reading act, historically predetermined - H.-G. Gadamer, H.R. Jauss; the dialogic nature of the "subject of cognition's" consciousness, determining the attitude towards the Other as possessing ontological value - M.M. Bakhtin). Examining the issue of intertextual connections between the work of a classic and a contemporary author involves identifying and analyzing the nature of these relations in a structural-semiotic aspect. Historically, this subject-object relationship is realized in the text, which not only transmits and preserves but also generates new information, fulfilling the functions of "creative memory" (Yu.M. Lotman). The aim of the article is to reconstruct the scenario for the actualization of Gogol's myth about the messianic purpose of his work as being akin to national religious myths - messianic, eschatological, and soteriological. Sharov's characters are contemporaries and participants in the events of 20th-century national history. They are obsessed with the search for a theological justification for the events of the Revolution, the Civil War, collectivization, and the Terror. The philosophical and theological views of the characters, stemming from these religious myths, are tested and refuted by the plot construction of all the novels. The main hero of Return to Egypt, a mystified descendant of Gogol burdened with the hereditary responsibility to complete the poem Dead Souls using the material of 20th-century national history, joins this gallery of Sharov's characters. The key novelistic plot of the "return to paradise from hell", which originates in the epistemological and ethical-aesthetic context of Gogol's creative failure, reveals the dynamics of the hero's development. The hero's collision with each event of 20th-century national history becomes a situation of cognizing the evil that lies at the foundation of the social salvation project. The new Gogol, like his ancestor, undergoes the trial of knowing evil. For him, this becomes a test of the fidelity to the social salvation project, which is sacralized by drawing on religious myth. However, unlike his ancestor, the hero, being a bearer of quasi-religious faith, perceives evil not as a distortion of God's design, but as its integral part. He interprets it as divinely pleasing. This second Gogol, who is a projection of a religious-mythological consciousness unwilling to part with the messianic idea of the Soviet project, is ultimately exposed as a descendant who did not inherit the tragic outcome of his ancestor's religious quests. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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