Russian

Narratives questioning the ruler’s authenticity have existed since time immemorial—both as an effective weapon in political struggle and as an outlet for deep social anxieties. The tsar’s inauthenticity has two main forms: active (impostorism) and passive (the substitution of certain people or forces for the real one). The study focuses on Russian projections of the tsar-substitute narrative. It manifested itself most clearly and fully in relation to Emperor Peter the Great, the builder of modern Russian statehood. An analysis of the factual material revealed that it is more appropriate to speak not of a single plot, but of a more complex structure—a megaplot. Many of its elements emerged simultaneously at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, and from then until today, they have remained in a state of dynamic interweaving, mutual complementarity, and development. Some of them have acquired autonomy (miraculous rescue, the arrival of a savior), while others have narrowed to the level of motif (the shape-shifter). The mega-plot about the replaced ruler is built on two components, which can be roughly defined as realistic and mystical. The core of the realistic com- ponent is the replacement of the tsar (at a genetic level, in childhood, abroad) by certain very specific individuals, which is conceived as an actual event. The mystical plot threads are connected through the profound archetypes of the Double and the Changeling, which, by activating the age-old fears of the Shape-shifter—half-man, half-beast—introduce the apoca- lyptic Beast into the collective consciousness of the Petrine era. Along- side him, other aspects of the Antichrist are also realized—the God-fighter and false Christ, whose visualization in opposition circles is Peter the Great. The plots created during this crucial era proved exceptionally effective, leading to their use on the emperor’s political heirs. The mystical element remained in the public debates of the past, but resonated in Russian literature (the works of A. S. Pushkin and D. S. Merezhkovsky). Realistic element, on the contrary, is increasingly present today thanks to digital technology. The sensational plot of a ruler being replaced, complemented by spinoffs of miraculous rescues and the redeemer of royal blood, draws more and more new faces into its orbit.

The article belongs to a series of publications presenting the results of the author’s research of the XX–XXI centuries’ Russian and foreign fantasy from the viewpoint of the Afterlife Universe artistic image embodiment as a special locus of human being (soul) postmortem existence. The article highlights charac- teristic features and functions of one of the basic leitmotifs in the artistic structure of the narrative of the afterlife – the motif of memory. It has been revealed that the given leitmotif is interpreted by writers in several semantic aspects and includes a number of subordinate motives: “self-memory” as the basis of a person’s posthumous self-identification, the memory of close family members and years past, the memory of the alive about the dead, and, finally, the memory of the humanity as a whole about its own history. Based on the results of the analysis, one can draw certain conclusions on the general meaning of the leitmotif: memory is a unique trace in history left by a person, it is also a great debt owed by the living to the dead, and it is the total collective experience that shapes humanity. Besides, in a number of texts, it is a steady basis of the Afterlife Universe existence.

The article examines the means of artistic embodiment of a person in a transitional period – the period of the 1990s, based on the material of Bulgarian and Russian literature (the collection of stories Heads or Tails (1999) by D. Enev, the collection of stories and novellas The Nineties (2024) by R. Senchin). The key role in the prose of both writers is played by the “little man” who finds himself in a marginal position. Many characters have an emphatically asocial character. The interest of both authors in marginal heroes, the appeal to transit, border spaces and situations are due to the specifics of the extra-literary context – the philosophy of the transition time of the 1990s, a period of loss of the previous system of axiological coordinates, abrupt socio-political transformations. The analysis revealed that the writers gravitate toward different strategies for creating the image of a person of transition time: Enev often resorts to modeling heterogeneous space and describes the dual position of a modern person through spatial oppositions, while Senchin focuses on the inner world of the hero, conveying his psychological state through internal monologues and indirect speech. In his works, several types of marginal heroes and models of their behavior can also be identified (from the disintegration of personality to attempts to find new life guidelines).

The article is dedicated to the prehistory and the emergence of the first history of Bulgarian literature in Russia. It was a section on Bulgarian literature in the Review of the History of Slavic Literature, published in 1865 by the future academic A. N. Pypin. The process of gradual accumulation of materials necessary for its creation was delayed due to many unfavorable historical factors and lasted a little more than half a century. Such a long period was explained by the fact that the Bulgarians were under Ottoman rule, they did not have national publishing and higher schools, the relatively late start of Slavic studies in this area, and other reasons. The article compares Pypin’s work on the Bulgarian theme with the artist’s making a mosaic panel of many “puzzles”. They belonged to foreign scholars J. Dobrovsky and P. J. Shafarik, Russian researchers Yu. Venelin, V. I. Grigorovich and I. I. Sreznevsky, as well as some representatives of the Bulgarian emigration in Russia as V. Aprilov, N. Palauzov, R. Zhinzifov, etc. The first version of Pypin’s history of Bulgarian literature reflected the level of scientific knowledge of the Slavists in that time, and was distinguished by the presence of many lacunae. The second version of Pypin’s section on Bulgarian literature, published about 15 years later in the two-volume “History of Slavic Literature” (St. Petersburg, 1879–1881), was much more successful, enriched with new historical and literary facts and scientific generalizations. This History received wide international recognition and almost immediately was translated into many Western European languages. Corresponding extracts from it were translated in Bulgaria and Serbia.