Vlas Doroshevich as Mr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov
The article analyzes the behavioral patterns (gestures, roles, scripts) and texts of Vlas
Doroshevich (in particular, articles and essays by Doroshevich written him about V. P. Burenin, A. I. Herzen, D. L. Mordovtsev). One of the most famous books during the life of the
writer “The Way of the Cross” (1915) is almost forgotten today. However, historians and literary historians still study his book “Sakhalin. Hard Labour” (1903). Being a contemporary of
A. P. Chekhov, Vlas Doroshevich, who lived after him for almost 20 years, repeatedly turned
to the life history of his contemporary, recognized as a genius during his lifetime. In such an
appeal, one can see not only the performance of newspaper and journal work due to the commercialization of literary work, but also life-creating practices. One of the most obvious practices is a trip to Sakhalin and a description of travel experiences in a book.
On the material of essays, feuilletons, memories that were written by Doroshevich for the
Sutin’s ‘Russian word’ this patterns are investigated. Firstly, it’s self-representation as Famous Other (often Genius). So Doroshevich wrote about Chekhov, however, most of the information is not related to the life and work of Chekhov, but closely connected to the life and
work of Doroshevich. Secondly journalistic fiction filled the voids. The automatism of this
type of writing is already exposed at the level of headings, among which the majority are built
according to the unified model of ‘Chekhov and X’: Chekhov and Maupassant, Chekhov and
criticism, Chekhov and Sakhalin, Chekhov and Suvorin, Chekhov and the title of writer, Chekhov and Marx, Chekhov and the stage, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Gorky. The last text, replicating the narrative model, chosen in the feuilleton Chekhov and Suvorin: X was very fond of Y,
as Y was very fond of X. Thirdly, Doroshevich has not only parodied contemporaries, but also
parodied himself. Thus “Memories of Chekhov” deceive the expectations of readers. The narrator Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov writes his text as Doroshevich himself wrote about Chekvov several years before. Lastly, pragmatics of Doroshevich'es texts is conceptualized in the pattern
Simeon, who did not live to see the Christ. Doroshevich used this idiom when he's speaking
about forgotten Russian writer Daniil Mordovtsev. Mordovtsev was so-called ‘little man’ of
Russian literature. Doroshevich did not want to be the same, so Chekhov’s symbolic capital
needed him as a way to change his own life, endow it with new, albeit secondary, meanings.
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Vlas Doroshevich as Mr. Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov // Сюжетология и сюжетография. 2020. № 1. Pp. 63–72. DOI: 10.25205/2410-7883-2020-1-63-72.