Oldal 276 [276]
LÉNA SZILÁRD
the existence of the True Teacher who appears in three forms: as Jeshua of
real life, as Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, and as the Teacher of the world
of the Light. He is not named, but he is also recognized by Woland (see the
dialogue on the roof of “Pashkov’s house”).
In my article, I address the history of the genre of the initiation novel in
20'*-century Russian literature, which, I contend, emerges as a response to
the domination of the Bildungsroman (novel of education), so characteristic
of 19 -century European and Russian literature.” As a theoretical basis,
I selected the philosopher M. M. Bakhtin’s conclusions about the specifics of
the initiation novel in Andrey Bely, which were presented in M. M. Bakhtin’s
lectures delivered to a group of students and committed to paper by one of
them, R. M. Mirkina." To my knowledge, none of the literary historians who
have touched on the specifics of the initiation novel has ever made reference
to Bakhtins conclusions. Ihis may be in part because Bakhtin does not use
the term “initiation novel,” and his train of thought in this respect is not
outlined explicitly. Nonetheless, Bakhtin’s conclusions, in my opinion, are
of considerable value, since his remarks on the potential distinctive features
of Bely’s novels, made in connection with Kotik Letaev, can be integrated
into Bakhtin’s ideas about the differences between the traditions of the
novel of education and the specific arrangement of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s last
novels. According to Bakhtin, the arrangement was continued by Bely from
at least one perspective. It is also important to note that Bakhtin stressed
the differences between the depictions of the hero’s path in the process of
formation in the novels of Lev Tolstoy and Dostoevsky:
In Lev Tolstoy a child’s life is rendered in a purely biographical context... Dostoevsky
strives to transform his heroes’ lives into hagiography. This is clearly demonstrated
in the depictions of the boys in The Brothers Karamazov. Here we have an attempt
to understand every moment of life in a cosmic plane: in crucifixion. In the same
fashion are rendered the events in the lives of Alyosha Karamazov and Prince
Mishkin. It is not by accident that the Prince will lose his orientation and himself
and get lost, but does not die. But with Dostoevsky the attempt to understand
everything in a cosmic plane can only be groped and everything is placed into the
framework of the inherited literary tradition. Andrey Bely will bring every moment
This article has been translated from the Russian original by Emese Nyíri and György Zoltán
Józsa.
3 Mikhail Bakhtin, Sobranije Sochinenij (Collected Works) vol. 2, Moscow, Russkie Slovari,
2000, 560-573.
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