Chinese-Russian comparative literary studies (based on the example of the poetry collections of Pushkin and Chekhov)

Abstract

The article explores Chinese-Russian comparative literary studies using the poetic canon of A.S. Pushkin and the implicit “poeticity” of A.P. Chekhov’s artistic world. Its aim is to demonstrate the productivity of going beyond genre classifications in order to analyze the poetic as a special mode of artistic thinking and intercultural communication. The empirical base includes a corpus of key lyrical texts by Pushkin, Chekhov’s few poetic attempts, a representative set of his short prose and dramas (including The Cherry Orchard) in an extended understanding of a “poetry collection,” as well as Chinese translations from different periods and a corpus of Chinese criticism from the past three decades. Methodologically, the study synthesizes the comparative-typological approach, reception aesthetics, discourse analysis, hermeneutics, and M.M. Bakhtin’s concept of the “dialogue of cultures”; additionally, tools from the sociology of literature and translation studies are applied to identify persistent clichés and transformations of cultural codes. It is shown that Pushkin’s poeticity is explicit (form, rhythm, composition, universal themes), while Chekhov’s is implicit (subtext, atmosphere, pauses, symbolic detail), and in their Chinese reception they form a dialectical pair of two poles of the “Russian soul”: the heroic-romantic and the everyday-humanistic. Typical translation difficulties are identified: for Pushkin—transmission of syllabo-tonic meter, rhyme, and cultural-historical realities; for Chekhov—reconstruction of the rhythm of prose, irony, and understatement without losing the “aura” of meaning. Discourse analysis of Chinese studies records an evolution from sociologizing interpretations to philosophical-aesthetic readings where “poeticity” is conceived as a way of constructing experience rather than a genre affiliation. The article concludes that comparing a poet and a “non-pet” within the focus of Chinese reception highlights the mechanisms of cultural transference and clarifies the boundaries between universals and national constants in literature. The proposed framework is applicable to other pairs of authors and can serve as a model for integrating comparative studies, translation studies, and reception research.