L. N. Tolstoy and A. T. Tvardovsky. On the Way to Epic

• Published in: Two centuries of Russian classics
• Main Author: Nina L. Ermolaeva
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature 2022
• Subjects: l. n. tolstoy; a. t. tvardovsky; true; living testimony; tragedy of war; brotherhood of soldiers; psychologism; mythologized images; epic thinking; Literature (General); PN1-6790; karelia*; karelian
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2022-4-3-96-119; https://doaj.org/article/8f52f615839443b483bef42e10015e7c

The article reveals the affinity of the world outlook, values and the ways of formation of the epic thinking of L. N. Tolstoi and A. T. Tvardovsky in their pre-epic sketches “Sevastopol Sketches” and “From Karelian Isthmus (The Front-line Notebook).” These works present their authors as the chroniclers of the on-going historical events, depicting their tragic character by different means of artistic expression. Both Tolstoi and Tvardovsky find the ways of depicting the epic image of the war fraternal community in the genre of a sketch. In their poly-character sketches, the writers use the ways of psychological analysis typical to their future epic: “dialectics of soul” of Tolstoi and the “folk” psychological characteristics of Tvardovsky. The epic thinking of the writers means the use of the poetic images, traditional to the folk culture as well as the mythological images that they treat in different way. The author of the article is assured that the formation of the epic thinking of Tolstoi and Tvardovsky, “truth of the explicit live witness” in “War and Peace” and “A Book about a Soldier” became possible due to the closeness of the writers with the folk masses as well as acquiring the folk view on the war and peace: in Sevastopol for the former and in the snows of Finland for the latter.