The Pushkin narrative in “The Bachelor Party” by Mikhail Korshunov and Viktoria Terekhova. On the borderline of documentary and fairy tale

Abstract

The article considers the Pushkin and Lermontov myths in the book “The Bachelor Party” by M. Korshunov, created in collaboration with V. Terekhova. It analyzes the complex generic nature of the book, which exists on the borderline of documentary writing and fairy tale. The study attempts to correlate the work with such concepts as “uchronia”, “metabiography”, and “biomythography”, and raises the question of the text’s scholarly legitimacy. In order to situate the book within the cultural context of the time of its creation, the article employs the concepts of “lightning” and “rainbow” (B. Ostanin, A. Kobak), parallels are drawn with the tradition of conjugating the fates of Pushkin and Lermontov among poets of the Thaw era. “The Bachelor Party” is structured like a “chorus” of narrators’ voices, each with their own perception of the poets. They are: tour guides, museum workers, children, and teenagers. The lyricism of those voices, along with the boldness of the hypotheses, enables the authors – researchers-neophytes – to produce a captivating, youthfully romantic narrative that gives rise to a new mythology.