E.B. Kulman’s Creative Work in the Context of the History of Russian Literature and Russian Poetic Translation

Abstract

In the article the facts of influence of German literature and art on the formation of a creative person of the Russian poetess and translator of the first third of the XIXth century E.B.Kulman are for the first time elicited, and also echoes of her creativity in German art culture of the subsequent time are systematized. The facts of the appeal of E.B.Kulman to the translations of works of antique authors, to free interpretations of the texts of I.-V.Goethe, I.-G. Foss, S.Gesner, etc., and also influence of the first edition of her “Poetic attempts” on the Russian literature are noted (“imagination” in A.V.Timofeev’s verses “Elizabeth Kulman”, B.M.Fedorov’s poem “To Elizabeth Kulman’s portrait”, etc.). As the most considerable event in posthumous history of E.B.Kulman’s works is considered the appeal to them of the composer R. Schuman who created two vocal cycles in 1851 – “Maiden songs” (op. 103, for two voices and a piano) and “Seven songs” (op. 104, for a voice and a piano). The special attention in the article is paid to a question of possible influence of E.B.Kulman’s fairy tale “The fisherman and his wife” (along with the fairy tale of the same name of brothers Grimm) on A.S.Pushkin in the period of creation of “The tale of the fisherman and a small fish”. In E.B.Kulman’s fairy tale “The fisherman and his wife”, as well as in the earlier work of brothers Grimm, heroes of the fairy tales – not so much characters, as elements of plot making; at A.S.Pushkin’s work the plot becomes simpler and fantastic motives are filled with the lyrical contents, the accent is transferred from the plot to the general lyrical action, characters and pictures. The authors of the article for the first time establish community and distinctions in the text of three fantastic works, and in each text both traditions of national culture and poetry, and rich art world of the German and Russian writers are found. Finally in the article the considerable materials allowing to speak not only about a bilingualism of E.B.Kulman, but also about the development of her creativity on a joint of Russian and a number of West European cultures are generalized, the specified value of her creativity for the development of the Russian literary translation of the XIXth century, the Russian translated fiction, need of preparation of the scientific publication of works of E.B.Kulman which exit could become the beginning of a new stage in studying of works of the talented poetess is noted.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s3p139