INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Artaor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS: LITERARY REFRACTIONS OF RUSSIAN YULETIDE RITUALS {SVUTKl) DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ruth Virginia Warner, M. A. ***** The Ohio State University 1999 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Irene Masing-Delic, Adviser v7^ Professor Lyubomira Parpulova-Gribble y Ç Professor Patrick Mullen Adviser Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literature UMI Number: 9941456 UMI Microform 9941456 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate the significance of the sviatki folk ritual in three major works of Russian literature, namely, Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and Akhmatova’s Poem Without a Hero. The works are analyzed in the context of the folk ritual of sviatki and a series of literary renditions of the motif. A large part of the analysis is intertextual. Each of the three works emphasizes the sviatki rituals of mummery and fortune telling and maintains a dialogue with the sviatki motif of literary predecessors. Because the folk celebration occupies only a portion of the larger works, part of my investigation consists of an analysis of the functions of the ritual celebration within the context of the works as a whole. In particular, the rituals provide the means to transcend time barriers. Both Pushkin and Tolstoy describe a sviatki ritual in which the narrative description approximates a traditional folk celebration of sviatki. The young heroines try to see into their future at a transitional stage in their lives when they are moving from adolescence into adulthood. Akhmatova creates a -sviatki in which her more than fifty-year- old author-persona looks into the past to expose a transitional stage in the life of her country. The methods and significance of intertexmalizing varies in each of the works. Pushkin creates a balladic dream for his heroine which resembles both the frightening dream of Zhukovskü’s Svetlana and the mock funeral of the sviatki folk celebration. Tolstoy, by means of intertextual allusions to Zhukovskii’s ballad and Pushkin’s novel in verse, shows his characters to play roles which both parallel and contrast with the roles of ii the characters in the earlier works. Through the comparison he thus parallels and contrasts the transition of two of his female characters, Natasha and Sonia, into their adult lives. Akhmatova contrasts the sviatki performance of her persona ironically and primarily with the dream in Eugene Onegin. She also evokes an image of the folk plays embedded in Dostoevsky’s House o f the Dead in order to emphasize the magnitude of the terrors of the twentieth century. u i In memory of my parents, Harry and Alice Warner and my aunt and uncle, John and JoAnne Fleming Warner IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express sincere appreciation to my advisers. Dr. Irene Masing-Delic and Dr. Lyubomira Parpulova-Gribble, for their guidance, insight, and support of my research. 1 would like to acknowledge Dr. Patrick Mullen for his ideas pertaining to folklore and literature. Thanks go to Dr. Anelya Rugaleva for her help in matters concerning the Russian language and syntax. Gratitude is also extended to Olga Velichkina for her expertise in Russian folk singing and especially the folk ritual of sviatki. And finally, many thanks to all the members of the OSU Russian Folk Choir Rusalka with whom 1 have sung and danced for the past six years. They have helped me acquire a sense of the performance of the koliadki and fortune telling of sviatki. VTTA September 5, 1950 ................................... Bom - Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas 1972 ........................................................ B. A., University of Northern Colorado 1995 ........................................................ M. A., Ohio State University 1972 - 1992 ...............................................Russian, German, French Teacher Colorado Public Schools 1993 - present Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Testing program for Nachalo, When in Russia... by Sophia Lubensky, Gerard Ervin and Donald Jarvis. New York: McGraw-HüI, 1996. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Russian Literature VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .........................................................................................................................................ii Dedication................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... v Vita...............................................................................................................................................vi Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 1 1. The FoUc Tradition of Sviatki ............................................................................................... 6 1.1 History of the Sviatki Folk Ritual ............................................................................. 7 1.2 Core Elements of Sviatki ........................................................................................... 9 1.3 Traditional Get-togethers (Posidelki)....................................................................... 10 1.4 Common Themes and Motifs ...................................................................................11 1.5 Mummers................................................................................................................... 12 1.5.1 Mock Funerals ..................................................................................................14 1.5.2 Games and Skits..............................................................................................16 1.6 Feeding and Warming the Dead ................................................................................17 1.7 Fortune Telling...........................................................................................................18 1.7.1 Less Fearful Forms of Fortune Telling .......................................................... 20 1.7.2 Frightful Forms of Divination ........................................................................ 25 1.8 S'mging OÎKoliadki ................................................................................................. 28 1.9 Folk Comedies.......................................................................................................... 30 1.10 Weather Omens ....................................................................................................... 31 1.11 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 31 2. Sviatki in the Russian Literary Tradition ..........................................................................34 2.1 Sub-motifs of Sviatki Literature ..............................................................................37 2.2 Ethnographic Studies ................................................................................................43 2.3 The Eighteenth Century: Ironies, the Picaresque Tale, and the Sentimental Tale............................................................................................................................ 45 2.4 First Half of the Nineteenth Century: Romanticism ............................................. 48 2.4.1 Zhukovskii’s Ballad “Svetlana”..................................................................... 48 2.4.2 Pushkin, Gogol, and Bestuzhev-Marlinskii..................................................51 2.5 Mid-Nineteenth Century .........................................................................................