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Oblomovka Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Leon Stilman
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Extract

A letter from I. I. Panaev dated February 10, 1847, brought to Turgenev, then in Berlin, much literary gossip and some news concerning the Contemporary. Panaev, together with Nekrasov, had recently taken over the magazine. The January and February issues included the first short stories by Turgenev. They were well received, wrote Panaev. He thought that the third issue also, then in preparation, “would not be too bad.” It would include, among other contributions, the first part of a novel by Gončarov. “Gončarov,” added Panaev, “beams and quivers with delight while reading the proofs, but tries very hard to look indifferent.” The novel was Gončarov's first published work, The Usual Story. According to Belinskij's testimony, the novel had an “unprecedented success” and “made a sensation in Petersburg.”

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , February 1948 , pp. 45 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1948

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References

1 Turgenev i krug Sovremennika (Moscow, 1930), p. 12.

2 Letter to V. Botkin, March 15, 1845, in Pypin, A. N., Belinskij, ego žizn i perepiska (St. Petersburg, 1908), p. 525.Google Scholar

3 Merežkovskij, D., “O pričinakh upadka i o novykh tečenijakh sovremennoj russkoj literatury,” in Polnoe sobranie sočnenij (Moscow, 1914), XVIII, 211.Google Scholar

4 “Gončarov,” ibid., XVIII, 33-57.

5 See his essay on Gončarov in Vengerov, S., Družinin, Gončarov, Pisemskij (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 61–96.Google Scholar

6 Ljackij, Evgenij, Gončarov (3d ed.; Stockholm, 1920).Google Scholar This author later published die first volume of a revised and considerably enlarged version of his work under the title Roman i žizn” Razvitije tvorčeskoj ličnosti Gončarova (Prague, 1925).

7 Mazon, André, Un Maitre du roman russe: Ivan Gontcharov (Paris, 1914).Google Scholar

8 Gončarov, I. A., “Neobyknovennaja istorija,” in Sbornik rossijskoj publičnoj biblioteki (Petrograd, 1924), Vol. II.Google Scholar

9 Mazon gives the date as 1844, which seems to be supported by serious evidence (cf. Mazon, , op. cit., p. 56 Google Scholar and the footnote). According to “An Unusual Story,” however, “the novel was conceived in 1844, written in 1845, and in 1846 there remained a few chapters to be completed” (op. cit., p. 7).

10 Gončarov, I. A., “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda,” in Literaturno-kritičeskie stat'ji i pis'ma (Leningrad, 1938), p. 157.Google Scholar

11 Gončarov, , “Predislovie k romanu Obryv ” ibid., p. 105.Google Scholar

12 “Predislovie k romanu Obryv” (A Preface to the Novel The Steep), “Namerenija, zadači i idei romana Obryv” (The Purpose, the Problems, and the Ideas of the Novel The Steep), and “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda” (Better Late than Never), are included in the volume Literaturno-kritičeskie stat'i i pis'ma, by I. A. Gončarov; hereafter referred to as Lit.-kr.

13 “Predislovie k romanu Obryv,” Lit.-kr., p. 124.

14 “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda,” Lit.-kr., p. 169.

15 Gončarov, , Obryv (Moscow, 1946), p. 46.Google Scholar

16 Gončarov, Oblomov in Polnoe sobranie sočinenij I. A. Gončarova (St. Petersburg, 1899), III, 134; hereafter referred to as P. s.s.

17 Cf. “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda,” Lit.-kr., pp. 153, 154.

18 Obyknovennaja istorija, P.s.s., II, 203.

19 Ibid., pp. 110, 111.

20 Ibid., p. 111.

21 Ibid., p. 157.

22 Oblomov, in P.s.s., III, 204.

23 “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda, Lit.-kr., p. 165.

24 Ibid., p. 161.

25 Ibid., p. 169.

26 Ibid., p. 164.

27 Ibid., p. 168.

28 “Predislovie k romanu Obryv,” Lit.-kr., p. 110.

29 “Namerenija, zadači i idei romana Obryv” Lit.-kr., p. 143.

30 Ibid.

31 “Predislovie k romanu Obryv” Lit.-kr., p. 105, note.

32 Ibid., p. 121.

33 Ibid.

34 Obryv, p. 46.

35 Ibid., p. 100.

36 Ibid., p. 207.

37 I. A. Gončarov i I. S. Turgenev po neizdannym materialnm Puškinskogo Doma (St. Petersburg, 1923), p. 43.

38 “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda,” Lit.-kr., p. 148.

39 Ibid., p. 152.

40 Ibid., p. 155.

41 Ibid., p. 161.

42 Obryv, p. 619.

43 Lit.-kr., p. 362.

44 Pritchett, V. S., The Living Novel (New York, 1947), pp. 228-34.Google Scholar

45 “Lučše pozdno, čem nikogda,” Lit.-kr.t p. 152.

46 Russkaja mysl' XI, 1891, 107-32. Rudin's death is described in the epilogue first published in 1865, long after Dobroljubov's article.

47 V. Pereverzev, “Socialnyj genesis oblomovščiny,” Pečat’ i revoljucija, 1925, II, 66.

48 N. Dobroljubov, “Čto takoe Oblomovščina?” in Sočinenija (6 ed.; St. Petersburg), 11, 512.

49 Ibid.

50 Oblomov, in P.s.s., III, 94 ff.

51 Ibid., pp. 81, 82.

52 See Pereverzev, op. cit.

53 Dobroljubov, op. cit., p. 500.

54 Oblomov, in P.s.s., III, 148.

55 Ibid., p. 69.

56 Ibid., p. 74.

57 Ibid., pp. 115 ff.

58 Ibid.

59 The name of the widow is Agaf'ja Matveevna; Gončarov's own mother was called Avdot'ja Matveevna.

60 Oblomov, in P.s.s., IV, 249-50.

61 Letter to A. A. Kraevskij of September 25, 1849. See Mazon, , op. cit., p. 99 Google Scholar and note.

62 See Gončarov, “Putevye pis'ma I. A. Gončarova iz krugosvetnogo plavanija,” in Literaturnoe nasledstvo, XXII-XXIII (1935), 309-426.

63 From a letter to E. A. Jazykova, without date (probably 1852), ibid., p. 344.

64 Letter to M. A. Jazykov of December 27, 1853, in Vremennik Puškinskogo Doma (St. Petersburg, 1914), p. 499.

65 Op. cit., pp. 8 ff.

66 Ibid., pp. 15, 16.

67 Lit.-kr., p. 247.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., p. 249.

70 I. A. Gončarov i I. S. Turgenev po neizdannym materialam Puškinskogo Doma, ed. B. Engelhardt (St. Petersburg, 1923), p. 36.

71 “Neobyknovennaja istorija,” op. cit., pp. 29-30.

72 Ibid., p. 175.

73 February 22, 1868, Engelhardt, , op. cit., p. 61.Google Scholar Further, in the same letter, he announced to Turgenev “the appearance of the novel Peace and War [sic], by Count Leo Tolstoj… . I have not read it (unfortunately I have lost all taste for reading), but all those who have … say that the author shows colossal power…. ” In “An Unusual Story” Gončarov wrote: “ Of Dostoevskij I read Poor Folk, where there is a dozen living pages, then … The Dead House, then, until now, nothing else, not Crimes and Punishments [sic], which, it is said, are very good….” (op. cit., p. 45.)

74 June 19, 1868; Engelhardt, op. cit., p. 26.

75 November 11, 1870, to Countess S. A. Tolstaja, then in Italy; ibid., pp. 87 ff.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Oblomov, in P.s.s., III, 69.