Onomastic Staples of Boris Akunin's Prosaic Supercycles

Shuiskaya Yuliya Viktorovna ORCID: 0000-0002-6752-3063 Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of Theory and Practice of Journalism and Modern Media Communications, Institute of International Law and Economics named after A. S. Griboyedov  111024, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Shosse Entuziastov, 21, of. 322 shujskaya@yandex.ru Other publications by this author     Borunov Artem Borisovich ORCID: 0000-0003-2507-7218 PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Romano-Germanic Languages Moscow State University of Humanities and Economics Losinoostrovskaya str., 49, Moscow, 107150, Russia borunov.artem@yandex.ru Gereikhanova Kamilla Fezameddinovna PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Theory and Practice of Journalism and Modern Media Communications, Institute of International Law and Economics named after A. S. Griboyedov 111024, Russia, Moscow, Highway Enthusiasts str., 21 kamilla.gereykhanova@mail.ru

Pogodina Yuliya Yur'evna PhD in Philology Senior Lecturer, Department of English Language and Professional Communication, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation 125167, Russia, Moscow, Leningradsky Prospekt str., 49 YYPogodina@fa.ru

B. Akunin (G. Chkhartishvili) is the author of a number of supercycles – works consisting of several multi-genre texts united by a cross-cutting hero, motifs and other cycle-forming staples. So, the most extensive is his so-called "Fandorinsky corpus" - works from the "New Detective" series, which includes 13 novels, two collections of novellas, one collection of short stories and a play (a total of 29 works). The texts about Erast Fandorin are joined by "The Adventures of the Master" - a series of 4 novels in which Fandorin's ancestors and descendants act, as well as the Genres project (an attempt to create samples of various genres), where representatives of the Fandorin family are also present among the heroes.

Due to the episodic characters, "Fandoriana" is associated with the cycle "Death on the Bruderschaft", one of the heroes of which – Joseph von Theofels – is a distant relative of Fandorin and also appears in the novel "Spy Novel" from the project "Genres". There is also a connection with three detective novels from the series "Provincial Detective", which deal with the adventures of the nun Pelagia: the heroine of the story "Scarpea Baskakovs", the novels "Decorator" and "The Lonely Sail" by Angelina Krasheninnikova (Fevronia) has a portrait of Pelagia and her mentor Mitrofanii hanging on the wall. The issues of cycle-forming staples of the "Fandorinsky corps" are considered in detail in studies ^{[3 - 5]}.

At the same time, "Fandorin's universe" defiantly distances itself from Akunin's other artistic universe – the project of "accompanying" the historical multi-volume "History of the Russian State". A series of historical books, the title of which refers to the "History of the Russian State" by N.M. Karamzin, is a 9-volume exposition of the history of Russia from ancient times to the beginning of the twentieth century. As a fictional "appendix" to the project, Akunin creates a cycle of 14 texts, the action of which takes place in various historical epochs. As in the "Fandorin corpus", the texts are of different genres: there are novellas, novels, a play with two endings (cf. "Yin and Yang" - "black" and "white" versions). The connecting link of the texts is the story of the descendants of the hero of the first book – the "Fiery Finger" - the Byzantine Damianos, who inherited from his father a birthmark in the very center of his forehead. Damianos' father, the founder of the spy school ("pyrophylactos"), attached a mystical significance to the birthmark. In each text from the fictional part of the "History of the Russian State" there is a character with such a birthmark, and all its bearers note the supernatural properties of their birthmark.

At the same time, the world of the "History of the Russian state" does not intersect with the "universe of Fandorin". Chronologically, the narrative is brought to the beginning of the twentieth century, the heroes of the last novel of the cycle "He asked when leaving ..." should be contemporaries of Fandorin, however, no episodic or central characters of the "Fandorin universe" are mentioned in the texts of the "History". The hero of the last novel serves in the police, helps a foreign woman – a private detective – to find a kidnapped child, the heroes plunge into the criminal world and the world of detective work, but do not intersect with the world of Erast Fandorin.

In two macrocycles of the same author, there are similar motives that allow us to talk about a special "author's handwriting", as well as about supercycle unities. One of such motives is the onomastic motive – the hero's name change. The onomastic game in Akunin's work is studied by the example of the collection "Jade Rosaries" ^[9], also the issues of onomastics are partially touched upon in the dissertation study of Tuova R.H. ^[11] and in the article by M.V. Davidyan ^[8]. In our opinion, onomastic motifs need more detailed development and consideration based on the material of the entire corpus of texts by B. Akunin (as well as his alternative literary masks).

The name change as a cultural concept is of a sacred nature: the name changes during the monastic tonsure as a sign of abandonment of the old life. The writer changes his name, taking a pseudonym for himself in order to separate "himself-the author" and "himself-the person". At the same time, the change of pseudonyms sometimes turns into a game with the reader – as, for example, with A.P. Chekhov, who had more than a hundred pseudonyms. It should be noted that Chekhov is the only writer from the classics of Russian literature mentioned in the "Fandorinsky corpus" and related projects and in the "History of the Russian State" as an off–stage character, and not the author of texts. So, the heroes can, for example, read F.M. Dostoevsky ("Pelagia and the Black Monk", "F.M."), but only Chekhov acts in the "Fandorin corps" as a character: in the "Theatrical Novel" it is mentioned about the search for his missing manuscript, and the writer's widow, O.L. Knipper, addresses Fandorin -Chekhov.

In the "new detective" the names are changed, first of all, by Erast Petrovich Fandorin himself and his lovers. Having received the iconic name "Erast" in honor of the hero of Karamzin's story "Poor Lisa", he brings misfortune to his beloved named Elizabeth. In the novel "Azazel", his wife Elizabeth Evert-Kolokoltseva tragically dies, in the "theatrical detective" "The Whole World Theater", the detective story "Where do we sail?" and the novel "Black City" describes an unsuccessful attempt at a civil marriage with the actress Eliza Altairskaya-Luantin, and, finally, in the novel "Not I say goodbye" Erast Petrovich finds "Elizabeth the third" - a girl nicknamed Mona (in honor of the mysterious smile that makes her related to Mona Lisa), the daughter of the heroine of the "Turkish Gambit" Varvara Suvorova. Throughout his biography, Erast Petrovich repeatedly feels the need to change his name – a conflict with a representative of the House of Romanov, the governor of Moscow, Simeon Alexandrovich, forces Fandorin to come home under the surname "Nameless" ("nameless" from English) in the novel "Lover of Death", "Kuznetsov" (the story "Before the End of the World"). Erast Petrovich also takes literary pseudonyms for himself – in "Mistress of Death" he joins the club of suicide poets under the name "Prince Genji", in "The Whole World Theater" he writes the play "Two Comets in a starless Sky", signing it with the initials "E.F." (cf. the pseudonym of the poet K.R.). investigations in the story "Planet Water" Fandorin takes the documents of the deceased Pete Bull and impersonates him. In the novel "Azazel" and "Turkish Gambit", the hero Zurov acts, who, having misheard the name of Erast Petrovich, constantly calls him "Erasmus" (an allusion to Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose name was also a pseudonym: the real name of the scientist is Gerhard Gerhards).

In addition to the voluntary name change, there are unintentional distortions of their surname in the biography of the branched Fandorin family: he is "von Dorn", it is transformed into "van Dorn" ("Children's book for boys"), "Fondorin" ("Altyn-tolobas"), "von Dorin" and "von Dorn" ("Extracurricular reading"), "Fedorin" ("F.M."), Dorin ("Spy Novel"), Dorn ("The Seagull"), Dronov and Darnovsky ("Fiction"), etc. Due to this variability, the projects "Adventures of the Master", "Genres" and "Death on the Bruderschaft" are adjacent to the "new detective".

Other characters of the "Fandorinsky corps" also change their names. So, a Japanese friend and assistant of Fandorin Masahiro Shibata (Masa) takes the name Mikhail Erastovich, and also performs under the pseudonym Lawns, which is a translation of his surname from Japanese ("The Whole world Theater"). Fandorin's beloved Angelina Krasheninnikova takes vows and takes the name Fevronia. The boy Senka Skorik, the hero of the "Lover of Death", becomes the French producer Monsieur Simon. In relation to the last two characters, there is a motive of recognition: in the novel "The Whole World Theater" Fandorin and Masa recognize in "Monsieur Simon" their former friend Semyon Skorik, and in "The Lonely Sail" Fandorin identifies Abbess Fevronia as Angelina Krasheninnikova.

The project "History of the Russian State", declared as an independent work, unrelated to the "Fandorin corps", also uses the end-to-end motif of name change as a cycle-forming staple. So, in the first work of the cycle, "The Fiery Finger", a Byzantine spy and spy, whose true name is Damianos, is presented to the soldiers as a Reptile, then a Demyan. In the work "Bokh and the Rascal" from the same cycle, the hero Yakov the Rascal comes up with an alternative name for himself, relying on his own: "You can call yourself Jacopo the Rascal – beautiful" ^{[1, 159]}, and at the end takes the surname by nickname – the Rascals. In the books "The Road to Kitezh" and "He asked leaving..." a distortion of the family name is presented: the daughter of the hero of "The Road to Kitezh" Adrian Lartsev takes the surname Larr and acts under the name Marie Larr in the novel "He asked leaving".

Also, the name change during the life of the hero or several generations of the same family is represented in the projects "Authors" - novels written by Akunin under the pseudonyms Anatoly Brusnikin and Anna Borisova. In Brusnikin's novel "The Ninth Savior", the heroes whose names hint at the names of epic heroes – Dmitry, Alexey and Ilya – change their names several times due to the vicissitudes of their life history. So, Alexey, posing as an Italian, takes the name Anselmo-Vicenzo Amato di Garda, Dmitry, hiding from the authorities, changes his surname Nikitin to Mikitenko. Anna Borisova's novel "Vremena goda" also presents a distortion of the surnames of his heroines: the surname Kannegiser is transformed into the French Kannegice, the surname of the main character Korobeishchikova is also distorted.

It should be noted that references to onomastics are present not only at the level of characters, but also in various pseudonyms of the author himself. In this case, the game with the reader using the onomastic code goes to a higher level: it is not the surname of the character and his ancestors / descendants that is distorted, but the surname and name of the author himself. Initially, the pseudonym B. Akunin appears: the word "akunin", as explained in the novel "Diamond Chariot", means a noble villain in Japanese, and in combination with the initial B. is a reference to the figure of the politician and public figure M.A. Bakunin. The appearance in 2008 – 2011 of Anna Borisova's novels and in 2007 – 2012 of Anatoly Brusnikin's novels was also a kind of onomastic game with the reader: the initials of fictional authors are a reference to Akunin's initials – "B.A." and "A.B.".

Also in the novel "Coronation" there is a reference to the author's name: one of the characters, the butler Freyby, has a surname, which is the surname "Akunin", typed in Russian with the English keyboard layout turned on – Freyby.

Accordingly, the game with the names of both the characters and the author himself in Akunin's works appears not only in the text itself, but also in its frame – in particular, in the author's name. The motif of identification, repeatedly presented both in Fandorian and in parallel projects, goes beyond the limits of the literary universe and opens its boundaries: the author enters into interactive interaction with readers, offering them to identify (or differentiate) different writers.

The name change thus becomes more than a motive: it is a vector of text formation of the writer's project and the formation of the literary reputation of the author. In Akunin's world, two cross-cutting motives related to onomastics are common: a short-term name change under the influence of external circumstances (Fandorin calls himself Nameless / Kuznetsov, hiding from the authorities, Alexey does the same in The Ninth Savior, Pelagia calls herself Polina Lisitsina in the interests of investigation, Damianos appears to be a Reptile so as not to appear on the the task under his real name, etc.) and the motive of the distortion of the generic name / surname due to its reinterpretation in other languages or in new generations (von Dorn – Fandorin – Dorn; Semyon – Simon, etc.). The author himself follows the "first path": he takes "temporary" names for himself (Akunin, Borisova, Brusnikin), thereby implicitly indicating the positioning of his works as a kind of "mission", a necessity. Let's pay attention to the fact that almost all the characters in the texts go for a short-term name change under the influence of external circumstances: the investigation turns out to be more important than troubles with the authorities or a monastic vow. Following this coordinate system, the author positions his novels as a kind of mission, an objective necessity, to which he seems to submit, takes it upon himself as a kind of duty.