Uwagi o specyfice gatunkowej powieści historycznej Dymitra Mierieżkowskiego

Abstract

Having analyzed the problem of the peculiar character of Dmitri Merezhkovsky’s historical novels with regard to their literary genre, the author of the paper tries to prove that the novels in question break up the pattern of a traditional nineteenth-century historical novel in the sphere of problems, narration, composition, as well as in that of creation of characters. From the genological point of view, the writer’s novels present a syncretic structure which consists of the elements typical for different kinds of novels. They combine some features of a traditional historical and biographical, or rather parabiographical, novel with those of a philosophical pièce à these or even a detective story. So the works under investigation may be regarded as a kind of symbiosis of epic, drama, a philosophical treatise, and an essay.