Article

Name: Pretenders in the Snow: The Image of Marina Mnishek in the Book of Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva “Craft”

Authors: Svetlana Yu. Kornienko

Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section On the Occasion of the Centenary of Yury Chumakov

Abstract:

The article is devoted to the image of Marina Mnishek in the book of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva “Craft” (1923). The images of the impostors will be reflected in the two cycles included in this book – “Marina” (1921) and “Snowdrifts” (1922). In the Marina cycle, the poet returns to the events of the Time of Troubles, already mastered in her lyrics of 1916. The solution to this historical plot becomes agonistic not only in relation to the historiographic tradition, but also the apology of these heroes in his own early poems. In the cycle of 1921, an alternative history is presented, in which another Marina appears – a poet, a successful rival for the Pretender’s heart. A genealogical study of poetic images reveals a number of sources: D. Mordovtsev, A. Bely, the collection of Kirsha Danilov, etc. References to the epic plot (the songs “Grishka-Rastriga” and “Three years Dobrynushka was so sleepy...”) are clarified by referring to Tsvetaeva’s marks in the draft notebooks 1922 (RGALI). References to the self-proclaimed plot in the Snowdrifts cycle appear when referring to Tsvetaeva’s creative laboratory – her notebooks, draft and white notebooks. In the book of poems “Craft” Tsvetaeva repeatedly uses the neologism “False Marina” invented in the cycle “Marina”, however, if the cycle of 1921 is filled with historical specifics, then in the cycle “Snowdrifts” (1922) the poet turns away from concrete images in favor of pure abstraction. The image of the “False Marine” – In historical and abstract writing – has intersections: an abundance of ornithological metaphors, the magic and chimerical nature of the image, nakedness and readiness for rebirth. Inside the poetic book (here Tsvetaeva repeats the movement of the same plot in the book of poems “Milestones. Issue 1”) the image loses its historicity, moving towards abstract writing. “False Marina” in the “Snowdrifts” cycle is no longer a historical impostor, but a complex of Tsvetaev’s metapoetic principles: the rejection of the name, essence, and even human nature in favor of the infinity of rebirth in other people’s names and bodies. Turning to notebooks and draft notebooks allows us to see the dynamics of the poetic image: the movement from simple to complex, from concrete to abstract, from historical fact to poetic image.

Keywords: Marina Tsvetaeva, self-proclaimed plot, creative metaphors, draft notebooks, genetic dossier

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