Abstract
The article provides an analytical overview of the «plots» that make up the content of the first part («Diary of Оne of Many») the famous Russian women's diary, owned by E. A. Dyakonova (1874-1902). The analysis of the plots of the remaining two parts of the «Diary» is supposed to be done in another article. The diary plot, in comparison with the fiction, has three specific features. It is not fictional, incomplete, discrete. Dyakonova's «Line of fate» in «The Diary of One of Many» (1886-1895) is determined, firstly, naturally and biologically (the transition from girlhood to adulthood); secondly, mentally and ideologically (the main and conscious desire of a diarist aged 14 to 21 is to leave her native home for the sake of further education and independent life from the mother). At the age of 14, Dyakonova's life includes three phenomena that will become the cross-cutting plots of her «Diary»: love, death, and a dream of freedom (in juridical and material terms, first of all). In addition to these plots, others are planned in the first part of the «Diary». At the end of 1891, the «mother vs daughter plot» (Lisa's estrangement from her mother) began; it «unraveled» only a year before Dyakonova's death. At the beginning of the same year, 1891 (Lisa is 16 years old) she discovers her body; physicality in its various manifestations will form an important (and for the third part of the «Diary» central) plot. In the same year, 1891, after reading the «Kreutzer Sonata», the plot of her correspondence with Leo Tolstoy begins. Around 1892 there is a characteristic diary plot of self-discovery and the accompanying plot of disappointment in God and faith (Dyakonova belonged to an old merchant family, where the traditions of Orthodoxy were strong). At the same time, in 1892, Dyakonova made a choice in favor of study and freedom, rejecting the usual (traditional) female happiness – love and family.
Keywords
E. A. Dyakonova, narratology, diaristics, genderology, diary plot, plot of growing up, plot of liberation, early Russian feminism