Abstract:
In “Eleazar”, as already in “Zhizn’ Vasiliia Fiveiskogo,” L. Andreev tackles the miracle of the resurrection. He subverts the biblical myth: the resurrection is not the return to life after death, but the invasion of life by death. Jesus is absent from the story. The resurrection is shown as a biological phenomenon. Andreev changes the timeline of the gospel script. In the Gospel of John there are two landmarks: the death of Lazarus and his resurrection, but the interval between them is empty. In Andreev’s story, there are three landmarks: Eleazar’s first death, his resurrection and his second death. Andreev is especially interested in the two intervals delimited by these markers: Eleazar’s stay in the tomb and his life after his resurrection. These two periods tend to be equivalent: the resurrected is simply someone who “has been dead.” Eleazar looks like a corpse. The text is suitable for a “Nietzschean” reading. What matters is whether readers will be able to bear the story, which shakes the foundations of Christian culture. Those who support it will appear as “revolutionaries”; the others, as “petty bourgeois.” We sense in “Eleazar” a fascination for death, for Nothingness, for emptiness, which has no relation to the subversion of the founding myths. The experience of Nothingness, a major invariant in Andreev’s work, is expressed in “Eleazar” in a more developed way than in his other works. One can see in the Gospel subject a material (in the sense of Tynyanov) deformed by the constructive principle (idem) of anguish. The text is transformed into an incantation, the repetitions play a key stylistic role. Narrative prose tends towards poetry.
REFERENCES
- Andreev, “Eleazar.” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem: v 23 t. [Complete Works and Letters: in 23 vols.], vol. 5: Khudozhestvennye proizvedeniia. 1906–1907 [Literary Works, 1906–1907]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 2012. 816 p. (In Russ.)
- Bulgakov, M. Sobach’e serdtse [The Heart of a Dog]. Paris, YMCA-Press, 159 p. (In Russ.)
- Il’ev, P. Proza L.N. Andreeva epokhi pervoi russkoi revoliutsii [Prose by L.N. Andreev of the Epoch of the First Russian Revolution: PhD Thesis, Sum- mary]. Odessa, 1973. 22 p. (In Russ.)
- Kozhevnikova, Nataliia “O nekotorykh osobennostiakh slovoupotre- bleniia v proze L. Andreeva” [“About Some Features of Word Usage in L. Andreev’s Prose”]. Tvorchestvo Leonida Andreeva: issledovaniia i mate- rialy [Creative Work of Leonid Andreev: Research and Materials]. Kursk, Kurskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii institute Publ., 1983, pp. 86–99. (In Russ.).
- Lotman, Iouri. La structure du texte artistique, traduction française. Paris, Gallimard, 1973. 415 p. (In French)
- Nietzsche, “Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra.” Œuvres philoso- phiques complètes, par F. Nietzsche. Vol. 2. Paris, Gallimard, 1971. 456 p. (In French)
- Rolet, “La quête du bonheur et la figure du meščanin dans la Russie des derniers Romanov.” Modernités russes, no. 5, 2004, pp. 113– (In French) Available at: https://www.persee.fr/doc/mod- ru_02920328_2004_num_5_1_1272?q=Rolet+bourgeois (Accessed 15 October 2021).
