ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF THE STORY “NAPOLEONDER” BY P. M. SADOVSKY
The paper discusses a little-studied topic - storytelling work of Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky (real name Ermilov, 1818-1872), the leading artist of the Maly Theater. The difficulty of analyzing Sadovsky's stories is due to natural reasons - they were not written down by the author. It is safe to say that most of the stories were invented by him and presented in the form of monologues to be performed “in character” on behalf of a certain social type. This allowed building speech and creating images based on social and everyday life characteristics. Sadovsky's stories, born in direct communication with close friends, have always retained their plot, yet at the same time remained free improvisation. The listeners were visitors to Pechkin's Moscow coffee house, literary evenings in circles, salons, in divertissements of the imperial stage. One may consider two stories on historical themes - “The French Revolution of 1848” and “Napoleonder” as fully or partially restored. The study reconstructs and analyzes the story “Napoleonder”, in the plot of which the author shared the popular view on recent historical events, contradicting the literary tradition. The artistic originality of the story is due, on the one hand, to the fact that P. M. Sadovsky uses the traditions of folk tale, oral tradition, the method of “folk etymology”. On the other hand, the story is intended for improvisational performance in the image. A connoisseur of Russian estate dialects and soldier folklore P. M. Sadovsky rendered the story on behalf of a retired soldier. Performance of stories by P. M. Sadovsky, playing social types, determined the new tendencies of the improvisational story of the 1840s on the concert variety stage.