Abstract
The article is devoted to the essays of Vasily Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko – a writer, publicist, traveler and war correspondent of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. The purpose of this work is to determine the place of Vas. Iv. Nemirovich-Danchenko in the context of the world literary process. Within the framework of the article, only a part of the writer's creative heritage is considered, namely, his essays on the Russian-Turkish (1877–1878) and Russian-Japanese (1904–1905) wars, as well as his essays on travels to the Caucasus.
The paper examines the opinion of contemporaries – critics and writers – regarding the writer's work. The judgments of such people as M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, N. A. Nekrasov, V. O. Mikhnevich, A. M. Skabichevsky, I. D. Sytin, P. V. Bykov are given separately, allowing a comprehensive assessment of the position which Vas. Iv. Nemirovich-Danchenko occupied as a writer in the eyes of his contemporaries.
The second part of the work analyzes the characteristic features of travel and military essays by Vas. Iv. Nemirovich-Danchenko: enumeration of statistical data, naturalism, colorful landscape descriptions, increased attention to the culture of the peoples of certain regions, disclosure of the topic in a humanistic manner, etc. These types of essays were chosen for analysis as the most revealing and important from the point of view of the profession of a journalist. The article uses examples from such collections as «Essays on the Caucasus», «One Year of War», «To War», «Beyond the Danube».
On the basis of the considered materials, the place of Vas. Iv. Nemirovich-Danchenko as an essayist in the world literary process is determined, and an attempt is made to define his creative method as based on the appeal «to the heart of a person».
Keywords
Vas. Iv. Nemirovich-Danchenko, idiostyle, travel essay, military essay.