V.A. Zhukovsky and Switzerland: on the origin of historic and philosophic motives of the Romanticist's 20 late prose

The axiological and semantic dominant idea of Zhukovsky's Swiss overtone became the Romanticist creation in general, connecting the opposing parts, Romanticist ''there'' and the reality; life and existence, painting and literature, Philosophy and Esthetics. The pathos of the didactic enlightenment exists in the Zhukovsky's Swiss overtone intentionally. In the undertone of the ideological-aesthetic unity, relating the connection between the Romanticist's creative works and Switzerland, there is a figure of M.M. Wildermeth, a maid of honor, who taught and supported Zhukovsky for many years. The French language letters of 1826-1833 by Wildermeth to Zhukovsky preserved in Saint-Petersburg Manuscript Department of the National Library of Russia are worth special attention. Most of them (sixteen of twenty) were written when the poet was in Switzerland in the beginning of the 1830s. The subject of liberty and revolution, people and power, the idea of divine disposal in history are mentioned in the dialogue by Zhukovsky and elaborated in Wildermeth's answers. The avalanche metaphor that appears in her text will rebellow in the ''volcanic'' imagery of the Romanticist's late prose. Zhukovsky's lines sound in unison in the letters to Alexander Nikolaevich, the Great Duke, (February 29, 1848) included in the paper ''What Will Be?'', and a detailed part of Wildermeth's letter to the poet (December 13, 1830). The commitment to the Christian truth and the pursuance of the conservative views in the situation of anarchy and fatal chaos were the positions Zhukovsky will have later observing the conditions in the Germany of the 1840s. These positions define the thoughts of the maid of honor in the letters from Switzerland in the beginning of the 1830s. Wildermeth's words seem to anticipate Zhukovsky's late prose. The warning apocalyptic motives together with the flaming optimism, hope for the mission of Russia, are realized in her letters and in many Zhukovsky's Russian and German papers of the end of the 1840-1850s. The same way Zhukovsky believes in God, sees the real world order salvation in the stability of the Russian Empire in the 1840s, in the beginning of the 1830s Wildermeth finds a solution of the acute political and social problems in Europe in her compact world in native Switzerland. The most important Romanticism constructs of ''Mine'' and ''Other'', the images of Russia and Switzerland, connected with Russian imperial family and the sense of revolutionary movement are realized in M.M. Wildermeth's letters to V.A. Zhukovsky. The dialogue between the maid of honor and the poet on the political and social problems in Europe in the 1830s sets the tone, in which Zhukovsky will work actively in Germany in the 1840s.

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