“The Golovlevs” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in A. A. Ukhtomsky’s Critical Works

The previously unpublished notes by A. A. Ukhtomsky in the margins of the first volume of the Complete Works of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1905–1906) are proposed to be interpreted as critical presentation material for the novel “The Golovlevs” and as a road map to expand the intertextual boundaries of this work. The marginalia by A. A. Ukhtomsky open up the prospect of reading the text of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the context of literary and patristic traditions. First and foremost, the former is identified by the scientist with Gogol’s tradition. A. A. Ukhtomsky calls the parallel “Plyushkin — Golovlev” one of its manifestations, which is explained through the prism of the “things/persons” antinomy. The features of the second are revealed by an Orthodox thinker when comparing the novel by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin with the precepts of the ven. Isaac the Syrian: the marks record the echo of those most important semantic nuances in the final scene that the St. Father highlighted when comprehending the “Last Judgment” and “Repentance” categories. The study of the corpus of readers’ marginalia by A. A. Ukhtomsky to the novel “The Golovlevs” contributes, first of all, to clarifying the characterology of Judushka-Porfiry in general and the causes of his pre-death suffering in particular; and secondly, to recreating the features of the spiritual portrait of the author, explicated in the work.