DOI 10.52172/2587-6945_2022_19_1_182
Abstract
In the article the main attention is focused on Anton Chekhov’s play "Three sisters" (written in 1900, first edition 1901) and on its postmodernist transformation, the play "Three girls in blue" by L. S. Petrushevskaya (written in 1980. staged in 1983, first edition: 1991). Our task is to investigate the relationship of the spatial elements of the two plays, which, in our opinion, can help to identify similarities and differences in the artistic mechanism of the impact of the works. On the basis of V. B. Kataev's assertion that "[Chekhov's] plays relate to all subsequent Russian (and not only Russian) drama of the 20th century as a single metadrama", in our analysis we consider the play "Three Sisters" as a "starting point" with which the play "Three Girls in Blue" is connected. We try to determine the type of this connection, primarily from the position of spatial poetics, to interpret the motivation for the transformation of the "model" in order to reveal the new semantic potential of the "post-text".
In the analysis we also touch upon the question of the settings (dacha, Moscow, Koktebel), compare their design with the literary tradition of these spatial images. We consider the poetics of dacha and resort place images in Chekhov's prose and compare them with the new meaning of these elements acquired by Petrushevskaya. We also investigate the semantic diversity of Moscow as a hometown, marked by motifs of light and warmth in the play "Three Sisters". We try to find an answer to the question to what extent this image retains these properties in the modern play, and how the possible meaning associated with Moscow is transformed in the play "Three Girls in Blue". At the end of the article we focus on the presence of the transcendental sphere in Pavlik's mystical dreams.
Keywords
Paratext, dacha as locus, kommunalka, roof, Moscow, resort place, transcendental dimension.