Who killed poor Liza? Cultural transmission in Nikolay Karamzin’s novel Poor Liza

Abstract

An appeal to the novel “Poor Lisa” by Nikolay Karamzin in an extensive cultural and historical context provides an opportunity to pose a question on the transmission of culture, its “vertical” dimension. This makes it possible to distinguish between the characters according to their cultural types: Liza is a person of “soil”, endowed with ancestors’ sacred knowledge, while Erast is a man of «culture» out of touch with the ground. In this regard, it proves to be relevant not so much the social inequality of the characters, as noted by the researchers, as their different worldview, attitude to nature, love, etc. Parallel with the Russian folklore tradition, lyrics, where the concept of «love» is represented through the lexemes «sweetheart», «soul», «heart» are also challenging in this respect. It is to this archaic knowledge, the heritage of centuries, that Liza, the main character, is attached. Separation from love, a broken heart in this context is equivalent to the loss of life. Based on such representations, Liza’s act is considered from a different angle: death is the only possible outcome for the heroine, for her heart life. In the typological aspect, it is fruitful to refer to Montaigne’s Essays, to his statements on heart life, which is to a great extent consistent with the life of nature. At that time, Montaigne’s philosophy was well known to Russian literary figures.

The methodological basis of the study includes structural-typological, comparative, and system-complex (culturological) research methods, ensuring a comprehensive approach to the analysis of the artistic text and making it possible to show the national space in Karamzin’s novel. The results may be interesting to both philologists and cultural scientists, and can also be used in courses on the history of Russian literature.