Tradition of authors mask in Russian prose of 1830s (stories by A. Veltman, O. Senkovsky, V. Dal)

In the article the specificity of the authorsmask functioning in the romantic prose by A. Veltman, O. Senkovsky, V. Dal is described. The tradition of the authors maskgradually develops in the domestic literature of the Middle Ages and 17th century (correspondence between Ivan Grozny and AndreyKurbsky, Archpriest Avvakums works). Finally it is shaped in the middle of the 18th century. At this time the authors mask transformsfrom a stylistic device to an artistic image of the fictitious author-storyteller performing the functions of the actual author. From themiddle of the 18th century the authors voice finds other, game possibilities and is capable not only to influence the reading audienceideologically, declaring ones own views, but also aesthetically, artistically, to demonstrative self-elimination from ones own compositions(М.D. Chulkovs Mocker, I.A. Krylovs Nights, N.M. Karamzins Letter of the Russian Traveller, D.I. Fonvizins Lecture, Told onSpirits Day…). The analysis of the authors mask realisation in the Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century allows speakingabout symptomatology of historical-literary process, in which narrative experiments with introduction of a fictitious author, stylisationand reproduction of others word become crucial for the second half of the 19th-20th centuries. With all distinctions of aestheticviews of A. Veltman, O. Senkovsky, V. Dal one thing is beyond doubt: their experience of the use of authors masks, constructed bymeans of prefaces, systems of epigraphs, using autobiographical context, parody, self-irony, does not simply become an organic continuationof the formed tradition and obvious landmark in its evolution, but it occurs to be a unique starting point of active introductioninto the artistic text of fictitious authors, who are presented by publishers, by the collectors of texts or by the tellers of the stories inthe domestic prose published in the 19th century. Specifically, the experiment with the introduction of a narrator, who performs thefunction of the author and stylizes the narration by means of giving other voices in the Russian prose of the first third of the 19th century,marked further complication of the narrative technology. Mask designated a radical change in the idea of writers about the interrelationsof the author - narrator, the author - heroes, about the ways to end stories and about authors self-estimation.

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