Andreev’s intertext in V. Bryusov’s short story “Sisters”

Abstract

This article proves the hypothesis that in Valery Bryusov’s short story “Sisters” (1906), there is a layer of text from Andreev, along with Chekhov, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Tolstoy, and Blok along with foreign literature (Maeterlinck, Franz, Przybyshevsky, Hoffman, and Poe), which goes back Andreev’s stories “Lies” (1901), “Silence” (1900), “Thought” (1902), and “Laughter” (1901). This is manifest itself in similar motifs: forbidden love and retribution for it, loneliness (realized in mental devastation and split personality (the motif of insanity)), in the structure of the story, which is built on the basis of oppositions: silence – sound (“Silence”), reality – hallucinations (“Lies”, “Silence”, “Thought”), love – hate (“Lie”, “Thought”), truth – lies (“Lie”), in the use of color symbols (white – red) to create an atmosphere of tragedy and death (black – white (“Lie”)), in stylistic techniques (parcellation, gradation, repetition, etc.), the repetition of which heightens the atmosphere of tragedy, and in animating an abstract concept (silence), which performs a communicative function in contrast to words which are losing this function. The article argues that, despite the difficult interpersonal relations between Bryusov and Andreev, the latter influenced the formation of Bryusov’s prose style, which is characterized by a combination of elements of mystical realism, symbolism, and the Gothic, and which is manifested in the novel “The Fiery Angel” (1907).