The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism
In the second chapter of The Gift, Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev recalls a “Kirghiz fairy tale” about a human eye that wants “to encompass everything in the world.” The plot of the story goes back to a Talmudic parable about Alexander the Great. The parable was retold in Russian by a nu...
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Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Studia Litterarum |
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| Online Access: | http://studlit.ru/images/2021-6-1/Panchenko.pdf |
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| author | Alexander A. Panchenko |
| author_facet | Alexander A. Panchenko |
| author_sort | Alexander A. Panchenko |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the second chapter of The Gift, Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev recalls a “Kirghiz fairy tale” about a human eye that wants “to encompass everything in the world.” The plot of the story goes back to a Talmudic parable about Alexander the Great. The parable was retold in Russian by a number of writers and scholars in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. However, it seems unlikely that Nabokov did use in any original piece of Inner Asian folklore in his novel. More probable is that he invented the “fairy tale” proceeding from one of the Russian versions of the parable. At the same time, Nabokov’s version is based on a number of international literary and folkloric motifs and is related to the “Kalmyk fairy tale” in Pushkin’s novel The Captain’s Daughter and to 19 th century Russian literary fairy tales in verse. While the central theme of Nabokov’s parable is the insatiability of human vision and the frailty of life, its con- and subtexts allude to some other recurrent themes of the novel — death and immortality, the quest for paradise, closed doors and exile, sources of love and poetical inspiration. The Oriental coloring of the tale (and the second chapter of the novel in general) appears to be a literary play with a limited number of texts, in particular with The Captain’s Daughter and A Journey to Arzrum. This allows discussing the “Kirghiz fairy tale” as an intratextually meaningful part of the novel rather than a marginal encrustation. It seems that Nabokov’s literary work with “migratory” plots and folklore texts was in a way close to the methods and ideas developed in Alexander Veselovsky’s school of comparative literary studies. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1ead5918092c4ddaa31d9d67ea5361c6 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2500-4247 2541-8564 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studia Litterarum |
| spelling | doaj-art-1ead5918092c4ddaa31d9d67ea5361c62025-08-20T03:54:57ZengRussian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World LiteratureStudia Litterarum2500-42472541-85642021-03-016126629910.22455/2500-4247-2021-6-1-266-299The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and OrientalismAlexander A. Panchenko0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7292-0303Institute of Russian Literature (The Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, RussiaIn the second chapter of The Gift, Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev recalls a “Kirghiz fairy tale” about a human eye that wants “to encompass everything in the world.” The plot of the story goes back to a Talmudic parable about Alexander the Great. The parable was retold in Russian by a number of writers and scholars in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. However, it seems unlikely that Nabokov did use in any original piece of Inner Asian folklore in his novel. More probable is that he invented the “fairy tale” proceeding from one of the Russian versions of the parable. At the same time, Nabokov’s version is based on a number of international literary and folkloric motifs and is related to the “Kalmyk fairy tale” in Pushkin’s novel The Captain’s Daughter and to 19 th century Russian literary fairy tales in verse. While the central theme of Nabokov’s parable is the insatiability of human vision and the frailty of life, its con- and subtexts allude to some other recurrent themes of the novel — death and immortality, the quest for paradise, closed doors and exile, sources of love and poetical inspiration. The Oriental coloring of the tale (and the second chapter of the novel in general) appears to be a literary play with a limited number of texts, in particular with The Captain’s Daughter and A Journey to Arzrum. This allows discussing the “Kirghiz fairy tale” as an intratextually meaningful part of the novel rather than a marginal encrustation. It seems that Nabokov’s literary work with “migratory” plots and folklore texts was in a way close to the methods and ideas developed in Alexander Veselovsky’s school of comparative literary studies.http://studlit.ru/images/2021-6-1/Panchenko.pdfnabokovthe giftfolkloreorientalism in russian literature. |
| spellingShingle | Alexander A. Panchenko The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism Studia Litterarum nabokov the gift folklore orientalism in russian literature. |
| title | The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism |
| title_full | The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism |
| title_fullStr | The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism |
| title_full_unstemmed | The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism |
| title_short | The “Kirghiz Fairy Tale” in The Gift: Nabokov, Folklore, and Orientalism |
| title_sort | kirghiz fairy tale in the gift nabokov folklore and orientalism |
| topic | nabokov the gift folklore orientalism in russian literature. |
| url | http://studlit.ru/images/2021-6-1/Panchenko.pdf |
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