The Oriental context of the topos of the garden in Russian "Fin de siècle" poetry

Dyachenko Tatyana Anatolevna ORCID: 0000-0001-8186-3569 Senior lecturer, Foreign Languages Department, Astrakhan State Medical University; Assistant, Russian Language Department, Astrakhan State Medical University 414000, Russia, Astrakhan region, Astrakhan, ul. Bakinskaya, 121, of. Astrakhan dyachenko_tatiana@mail.ru

The culturally specific realities of the Muslim East are reflected in a number of poems by Russian poets fin de si?cle. The authors do not do without the garden topos, which is central to Muslim, in particular Persian, literature, acting as a cultural unit in the locus of lyrical works of the 1880s-90s.

The garden acquires the status of the dominant topic in the works of K.R. (Grand Duke K.K. Romanov), focused on the poetic tradition of the East. In the work "What a pity that roses are fading!" (1885), the garden becomes a background for illustrating the transience of life. The rapid change of the season is allegorical in nature: along with the fading of roses and jasmine, the beauty festival ends, and with it – earthly existence. In the poem "In the days of young Hope" (1886), the poet builds a symbolic nightingale-rose chain for eastern love lyrics, and depicts a green and fragrant garden as a kind of ideal microcosm, an analogue of God's beautiful macrocosm, in which "the firmament is deep and pure" (we find this in K.K. Sluchevsky in the work "My Garden surrounded by a fence": the lyrical hero encloses the whole world within the framework of his garden – a blooming, flawless space created by love). In the poetic work "Here, in the silence of a pensive Garden" (from the cycle "Sonnets to the Night", 1892), K.R. uses the image of the garden as a universal locus of a magical eastern country, in which Scheherazade is the beloved of the lyrical hero, and he himself is a caliph listening to her whispering.

In the work "On the Way to the East" Lokhvitskaya also does not do without the central garden topos for Muslim literature. The poetess divides the space of the garden (in which the romantic motive of the two-world is traced): on the one hand, it is an oriental-style luxurious place with exotic parrots, colors and aromas of jasmine, roses, roses, anemones, but the beauty does not please the main character of the drama, who calls the birds "annoying", the colors of the flowers "screaming", and their fragrance "suffocating and sharp".

On the other hand, it is a quiet corner, "where you can't hear either the singing of birds or the roar of a stream" ^{[1, p. 21]}. Here the poetess introduces phytonymic images of a sad tamarind and willow, whose branches lean towards the wave; they are anthropomorphized according to male and female vectors, respectively. Tamarind is interesting for its botanical description: the tree can be both evergreen and deciduous. Thus, the phytonym is probably contaminated with the image of the heroine's lover – an Eternally masculine handsome man with oriental eyes - indicating his dualistic nature.

Willow is a symbol of separation, as well as feminine grace and light sadness. The phytonym correlates with the central character of the drama – Balkis – and conveys her sensual experience. A parallel is drawn between the plant's inclination and the heroine's veneration of her lover – Solomon (Suleiman), the "sun of the East", the "king of kings". For her, he is the inspiration and god, whose inaccessibility is emphasized by the verbal lexeme rises ("Where only the sad tamarind rises" ^{[1, p. 21]}).

In the Balkis garden there is another phytonym – the white lotus, whose image acquires a special meaning of color contrast (white / black): the flower is compared to the pearl star, which hides in dark reeds.

The white lotus is a symbol of sleep. It acquired a similar meaning due to its peculiarity: the flower is closed during the day and blooms only at night. The phytonym is associated with ancient Greek mythology. In the IX song of the Odyssey, Homer depicts the lotophages – a people who lived on an island in North Africa and were under the rule of the lotus (they ate flowers and fell into oblivion) ^{[2, p. 72]}. Later, the lexeme lotophagus acquired a metaphorical meaning: it became the name of people seeking oblivion. This phyto-image in the context of the oriental aesthetics of Lokhvitskaya's work introduces a dream motif characteristic of her lyrics, inextricably linked with the motif of love-temptation, which has a fatal predestination. The lotus attracts, hypnotizes the queen of the South with its subtle fragrance, like a "sigh of a taut string", drowning out all incense. The mystical feeling is intensified: the fragrance of the flower spreads and fills the whole world "As a powerful hymn to an unknown God, / As a triumph of exultant love" ^{[1, p. 30]}; sleep is transformed into a pleasant death-liberation, after which everything impossible in earthly life will be available, including unity with the beloved.

The topic of the garden in Merezhkovsky's poetry "grows" from the heritage of "pure art" by Apukhtin, K.R., Nadson, Sluchevsky, Fofanov, etc. Relying on the works of the classics, the symbolist poet uses oriental genre-thematic chains, images, etc., which have become romantic stamps, in order to implement the principle of antinomy characteristic of his work. In the poem "The night and the roses entered into the conspiracy today ..." (1887), the images of a fragrant dark garden, a nightingale and roses are projected by Merezhkovsky to create a conflict of confrontation between the mind and soul, consciousness and heartfelt feelings. The planned "rational/irrational" dichotomy becomes the structure-forming element of the entire work. The image of the garden is associated with the motives of dreams, dreams – this is how the poet conveys longing for the incomprehensible, sensual world principle. The standard "set" of oriental imagery is reinterpreted by Merezhkovsky in the spirit of symbolist dualism. The discord between reason and feeling is intensified by the colorative contrast of a dark garden and the light of a burning lamp, behind which "between books, talking with friends" ^{[3, p. 133]}, the lyrical hero jokes "Over the singing of a nightingale and silly poems, /Over the sighs of love and the virgin moon ..." ^{[3, p. 133]}.

In the work "Oriental Myth" (1887), the image of the garden acquires a liminal status, acting as a sacred boundary between the ideal world of luxury of the royal golden palace and the reality of humble workers (""I want to know what's behind the garden door / Let me go there!.." And the doors opened..." ^{[3, p. 148]}). Merezhkovsky builds a barrier for his hero-tsarevich, endowing him with romantic features: he escapes from the familiar, comfortable world, which seems to him a prison.

The symbolist develops a different semantics of the oriental topos in the poem "When I entered life, I pictured happiness ..." (1885). The harmony of the soul is likened to a bright, wonderful garden with its immanent signs – garlands of roses, jets of fountains. This is seen as following the Merezhkovsky pan-European tradition in the poetization of this universal of Oriental literature: the garden as "paradise", "love", "soul", etc.

"The East" is perceived by Merezhkovsky in a symbolic aspect in the poem "Oh, let me forget the fogs and blizzards..." (1883). The poet creates an antithetical parallel based on the romantic motive of the duality: in opposition to the image of the misty, snowy north, whose cold the lyrical hero seeks to forget, a certain ideal space is put, the central conventional sign of which is the garden. The pictures of color and sound support a given dualism – the discord of reality and dreams: transparency, colorlessness (fog and blizzard), dark tones (night haze), disturbing noise (the roar of a blizzard) are contrasted with a bright palette (blue seashore, golden radiance of rays, emerald frame of greenery, turquoise of the bay) and tranquility (calm, unruffled sleep, a quiet corner, a dormant village). The lyrical hero appropriates both worlds for himself ("... in the north, under the roar of a blizzard / I could remember in the darkness of my nights / My quiet corner, my garden ..." ^{[3, p. 68]}), in which the principle of antinomy is manifested – the duality of consciousness and feelings. The conflict of mind and soul is also seen in the manner of presentation of the material. It is marked by an up-and–down movement due to the image of multi–level images: the description of the landscape begins with the image of the seashore, followed by valleys, a garden, an aul, followed by silhouettes of steep mountains, then a cliff-like cliff, then hills, and finally the landscape sinusoid is leveled, ending with the image of the bay.

Sluchevsky adheres to the tradition of Eastern Muslim poetry, excluding modernist transformations of the semantic field of garden topics. In the poem "And they are in the sounds of a song, like fish in water ..." the poet resorts to the classical understanding of the garden for Persian literature as a place of solitude for lovers: "And in the garden under the window, a couple was grinning secretly / A couple, a couple ..." ^{[4, p. 145]}

The work "And here I am sitting in my shady garden ..." is marked by a philosophical level of understanding of the world and man. Questions about the meaning of being, life and death are considered against the background of a garden according to the samples of Persian verbal art, in which the role of floral ornament, along with moral, ethical, philosophical maxims, is particularly significant, cf.: "Roses bloom again in the morning breeze, / And the nightingale's song has all been announced around. / Let's sit under the pink shade! They will be, as they are today, above us / Their petals will crumble when we go to the grave" (O. Khayyam) ^{[5, p. 297]}. A similar pink canopy of the garden of flowers – Gulistan, which has become a metaphorical element of Iranian literature, is contrasted with the Roman catacombs by Sluchevsky in the poem "Sometimes I would like all the trends of spring ..." (1899).

The locus of the garden acquires a complete semantic appearance in Fet's work. In the work "Do you remember what happened then ..." (1885), the poet follows the Sufi tradition in using garden topics. The poem is characterized by a retrospective organization of the plot: the lyrical subject is attached to romantic memories, addressing the beloved: "Do you remember what happened then <...> / How, with his eyes closed, the nightingale / Was blissful in the song above us" ^{[6, p. 309]}. The first three quatrains are painted in light tones: images of raging streams, cheerful oaks, and the happiness of a weeping willow support the dynamic, life-affirming atmosphere of the first part of the composition. Then, starting from the fourth quatrain, an antithetical transition is planned: "Look around you now: / Everything is sadly silent, dying ..." ^{[6, p. 309]} Here the image of the garden is introduced, which is only guessed ("And the door is wide open / From the former bright paradise" ^{[6, p. 309]}), in which Fet's impressionistic artistic manner is manifested. The image of a bright paradise is a periphrastic form of a garden by analogy with classical examples of Eastern Muslim poetry, where the garden topos is a metaphorical equivalent of Paradise (gardens of bliss).

In the poem "Fragrant Night, blessed Night" (1887), the aesthetic perception of the image of the garden is carried out in the spirit of the romantic current ("These stars are all gathered around, / Without blinking, look into this garden" ^{[6, p. 215]}). Here he is a conditional space of dreams and dreams. Images of a fragrant night, a burning moon, tenderly whispering jets, cooing guitars, a key humming calls of love create a mysterious atmosphere of bliss and longing. Fet's thought is metaphorical, it contains a mysterious worldview: "As if everything is burning and ringing at the same time, / To help an impossible dream; / As if, with a slight tremor, a window will open / To look into the silvery night." Mysticism is supported by the romantic chronotope of the night. "Night is world mysticism, it is all-encompassing music, power, and an irrational force" ^{[7, p. 19]}. V.M. Zhirmunsky calls Romanticism "a kind of form of development of mystical consciousness" ^{[8, p. 6]}, the same definition also reveals the essence of Eastern Muslim Sufi poetry.

In Fet's work, the mode of the garden includes the identification of this locus with a place for romantic meetings. So, the poem "Azure Night looks at a mown meadow ..." (1892) depicts a picture of the lyrical subject's immersion in memories of a distant, long-standing garden, where "... and the stars are bigger and the fragrance is stronger <...> / And as if someone is about to be nice again / I am ready to whisper about the rapture of a date" ^{[6, p. 331]}. Odorological images of the smell of roses, night incense, the gentle breath of grass and flowers, a strong fragrance, the motif of longing (languid chest, languid living wave) create an emphasis on the connection with oriental poetics.

In the lyrical work "I am waiting, I am filled with anxiety ..." (1886), the road through the garden goes towards love and becomes a symbol of mutual, happy feelings. The path along which the beloved moves follows through the sacred topos of the garden and thereby marks her transition from reality to the unreal world of the lyrical subject. The romantic line is supported in parallel by the introduced ornithological image of a crake calling his girlfriend.

The expectation of the long-awaited hour of meeting with the beloved against the background of the garden is presented in the poem "The garden is all in bloom ..." (1884). The first tercet reproduces a spatio-temporal picture: a blooming garden and "evening on fire" ^{[6, p. 144]} organize a romantic chronotope. The atmosphere of romance and mystery is complemented by the epithets mysterious speech, blessed mystery.

In the work "Only the month has risen ..." (1891), Fet calls the love feeling a blooming flower, and the garden appears to be a haven for lovers. The poet uses the epithet darkened garden, i.e. darkened, which means secluded, hidden from prying eyes. The second quatrain emphasizes the intimacy of what is happening. In general, the garden topic plays a significant role in Fet's work, and the nomination of lovers by phytonyms is frequent.

So, the garden as one of the central topos in the poetic tradition of the East is reflected in a number of poems by Russian poets fin de si?cle. Oriental imagery is transferred to the sphere of the universal language of poetry, into which poets translate the subjectivist attitude to the transformation of the real world into an ideal one. Garden topic in the context of oriental exoticism plays an important role in the work of poets of the late XIX century. For K.R., she is an image of an ideal world, a background for illustrating the transience of life and, just like for Lokhvitskaya, a universal locus of a magical eastern country. In Merezhkovsky's poetry, the garden "grows" from the heritage of the "pure art" of the Russian classics. Sluchevsky resorts to the classical understanding of the garden topic for world literature as a place of lovers' solitude. Fet has a similar semantics in the poem "Azure Night looks at a mown meadow ..." In addition, the poet comprehends the image of a garden in the spirit of a romantic current, for him it becomes a conditional space of dreams and dreams.