The strategy of L. N. Andreev’s self-presentation in an interview with the press of the early XX century

Abstract

The article analyzes the current form of interview-conversation, which is innovative for mo dernity, using the example of L. Andreev’s interview. The interview is considered in the context of intensifying the interaction of the press with the reading public as a genre that meets the audi ence’s demands for interaction with the author. The narrative framework of the interview is de termined by the role of the writer in the modern era, his increased symbolic value, and the confi dence of society that the writer knows the answers to the “painful” questions of the time. This leads to the orientation of interviewers to search for prototypes and real events underlying the texts, increasing the expert role of writers. It is noted that at the time of its appearance, the genre was guided by the tradition of the portrait essay, which seeks to transform the question and-answer frame into a monologue statement, to highlight the figure of the writer being inter viewed. It is concluded that Andreev’s interview should be considered as a way to define the boundaries of the author’s self-interpretation, to create a canon of “biography” modeled by the writer in symmetry with the chosen artistic manner. The narrative about himself, on the one hand, is conditioned by rapid non–reflective communication with reporters (event-driven), on the other hand, it consistently presents Andreev’s right to an impressionistic style of writing, an unbiased word.