“I asked Rezo Gabriadze to Issue a Visa to Pushkin”: Folklore Myth Symbol in “Metamorphoses” by A. Bitov and R. Gabriadze

Abstract

The report examines the relationship between the folklore image of A.S. Pushkin and his artistic development in the post-modern text. The mythological nature of the events of the “biographical legend” of A.S. Pushkin, which took shape earlier, in the 21st century generates new interpretations in the literary text and needs close scientific reflection.

This issue is sequentially considered on the basis of the autobiographical myth as the dominant of Pushkin’s life and work, folklore versions of this myth (Pinezhsky Pushkin), and then as a way to create a simulated reality in modern prose. An analysis of the artistic means of expressiveness shows that the auto myth is balanced by a simulacrum, which gives it dialectical stability. The value of the simulacrum is that it interprets and expands the auto myth from the position of a fairy tale, adapting the image of Pushkin to the present and in many ways explaining the possible reasons for the transformation of the author and folklore myth-symbol “Pushkin” in the postmodern cultural and historical field.