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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. + 274 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 274 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:24
