On Issue of Research and Classification
Studying the hagiographic traditions in the literature the modern period, one faces several issues.
Firstly, it is assumed that a scholar who compares the hagiographic motifs and plots to the
motifs and plots of the modern period, deals with the a hypothetical complex of the already identified
and described the hagiographic motifs and plots and all he has to do is to compare them to the
motifs and plots of the literature works written in the later times. However, there is no yet such
a thing as a complete research on all hagiographic motifs and plots. There are studies of the certain
hagiographic texts and the certain types of hagiographic texts, but there is no comprehensive
list or index of the hagiographic motifs and plots. Secondly, there is no uniformly accepted scholarly
terminology defining what a hagiographic motif is. Can any element of a hagiographic text
be considered as such? Should the motif be defined as a unit of a theme or of a plot depending on
the theory a scholar chooses to base on: Veselovsky’s vs Tomashevsky’s? How is the term
“topos”, which becomes more and more popular among the researchers of the hagiography, related
to the hagiographic motifs and plots? Thirdly, the number of the hagiographic and literary texts
as well as researches and studies on the subject is so huge that it is only possible to specify some
trends of development of the hagiographic elements and traditions in the succeeding literature.
The article summarizes and analyzes the existing scientific approaches to the issues of analysis,
classification, typology of the hagiographic plots and some hagiographic motifs in the Russian
literature of the modern period.
The conclusion of the survey is that the modern literature does not need the hagiography as
a sapless model; such components of the hagiographic framework as its structure, plot, character,
details are transformed from typical, similar to each other, copying the model ones to the unique
ones interpreted in new original ways. Usage of the hagiographic sources can not be associated
with a certain single genre; the hagiographic elements can be assimilated in any narrative or even
in poetry. The literature of the modern period borrows plots, motifs and other elements of the
hagiography but it lacks the utilitarian role that the hagiographic texts used to play as calendar
reading. Names and dates become just literary symbols, references to some significant analogues
but they do not demand to treat a literary character as a hagiographic character.
The main purpose of this work is to actualize the discussion on how an index of the hagiographic
plots and motifs should be compiled, what a hagiographic motif and plot are, what should
be considered hagiographic plots and motifs in later narratives, taking into account that not all
the topoi and elements as well as rhetoric and periods, which are recognizable as the indicators
of the “hagiographic tradition” in the narrative, can be defined as the motifs in the strict sense of
the term.
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On Issue of Research and Classification // Сюжетология и сюжетография. 2019. № 1. Pp. 123–138. DOI: 10.25205/2410-7883-2019-1-123-138.