Russian Сountry Estate: Semantics, topos and chronos

Abstract

The paper draws on a wide variety of historical and literary sources to study the Russian estate as a typical post-Peter cultural product, whose death in 1917 was perceived as an emblem of chaos and Scythian triumph. The estate is the most paradoxical space imaginable: a strange mixture of nature and artificiality, a cultural space in the natural landscape, Europe and Russia in one, an imitation of blissful islands and a keen awareness of their illusory nature. It is an idyllic place and an abode of death, where time seems to flow into eternity right before the contemplative eye. The real death of the estate, which occurred in 1917, was already prepared architecturally and literary by all the previous development of the estate culture. The idyllic place, locus amoenus, was originally full of fears and scary nooks. In this sense, Russian estates naturally fit into a common trend for European gardens: their et in Arcadia ego acquired the opposite meaning of death, which also visited Arcadia. Rethinking the Golden Age of the Russian estate, the author argues that as early as 1812 (the French army invasion followed by partial ruin of the Russian gentry homes) and especially after the Reform of 1861, the life in the Russian country estate begins to be perceived as dying, though with certain periods of renaissance. Paradoxically, these periods of revival coincide with the time when the society begins to sound especially plangent about the estate culture, as for instance, was in the early 1900s. The Russian estate culture was closely connected with literature: the real estate space gave rise to its special variety, known as the estate text of Russian literature, which in turn formed the estate life. One of its main constants is estate love, which is not surprising, since the garden appeared as a space of love even in ancient times. In contrast to the Western literature tradition, Russian esate love, as reflected in literature, has a special speculation: the key events belong to consciousness, rather than to reality. The paper also focuses on the fate of estates after 1917 and its understanding in the new Soviet and émigré literature, where the death of the estate, with its large and small apocalypse, is not only experienced, but also evaluated. After 1917, I. Bunin's Dark Alleys, V. Nabokov's Other Shores as well as novels by B. Zaitsev and M. Osorgin provide the estate with the status of a virtual value that no longer needs real substance.