APOLOGUE AND ITS GENRE VARIANTS IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF XIXth CENTURY (V.F. ODOEVSKIY, I.S. TURGENEV, A.P. CHEKHOV)

The article analyses the transformation of the apologue as a genre in Russian classical literature tradition, its new meaning as a term in the literature of XIX century. Apologue traits are to be found in parable, legend, tale and short story genres. The study examines literary and fictional works of V.F. Odoevskiy, I.S. Turgenev, A.P. Chekhov which aren't usually in the center of philologists' attention. Conclusions of the study draw the attention to the study direction itself as well as to its results that give essentially new answers to well-known questions about the style and the genre. The study conducts comparison of the “apologue” term’s definition with the “fable” which is considered synonym from the Ancient times. Moreover the main trait of apologue is animal characters whereas in literature of the Middle Ages, the European Enlightenment, and furthermore in literature of Modern Age this feature is absent. Above that, the German literature shows that apologue is connected to meanings crucial for Christian worldview, but by the middle of XIXth century, these meanings are pushed out by the terminology of so called “calendar literature”. The analysis of a “fairy tale” written by V.F. Odoevskiy shows that the writer who was familiar with apologues of F. Krummacher structures his work basing on principles of apologue where main trait is moral teaching, important in Christianity and characters there are not made into animals. To confirm that this is not one example of “apologue” this article also examines a short story by I. Turgenev called “A drop of life”, where the apologetic content is connected to the genre of Christian legend. The apologue is in the basis of this synthetic in terms of genre work with distinct moral agenda. While seeming inifferent to moral and spiritual composition, genre definitions “fairy tale” and “short story” are trying to indicate oral nature of the story, they contain features of oral tradition and legends. The study analyses in details in search of apologue features the short story “A story of senior gardener” by A. Chekhov. The semantics of the gardener image, the key problem of crime and punishment, the reflection upon chronotopos of the short story, also the mutual for three works character of the doctor, the way he’s presented, all of this confirms the hypothesis of the study. The article concludes that the genre of apologue is dominant in almost all of the calendar literature works and in those short stories, fairy tales and other genres that promote directly or indirectly the moral and didactic idea.