Cultural dialogue between Russia and Italy in Boris Zaitsev’s “Italian text”: Ekphrasis poetics

About the author:

Ekaterina A. Chertenko, Assistant, Postgraduate Student, Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; e.a.chertenko@utmn.ru, https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7797-2560

Abstract:

This article examines the issue of cultural dialogue in B. K. Zaitsev’s “Italian text” through the prism of ekphrasis. The object of the study is travel essays from the series of essays “Italy” (1923) and “Days” (1947). Methodologically significant for us is the intermedia analysis of ontological ekphrasis in Russian modernist prose. The author reveals that the symbolism of gold, the sun, and pearls permeates Venetian ekphrasis (architectural – St. Mark’s Basilica, and pictorial – female portraits by Titian, Palma, Giorgione), expressing the transcendent essence of Italy. Solar symbolism is key to the perception of Florence, where the writer combines ontological perception of the landscape with the ekphrastic (Botticelli), resulting in a painting that comes to life with a real landscape. Through the metaphor of gold honey, Zaitsev ontologizes the ekphrasis of Venetian painting. The author shows how St. Mark’s Basilica, through the metaphor of a “decaying old man,” ontologically correlates with Titian’s self-portraits in old age. In the architectural ekphrasis of St. Mark’s, there is an intertextual reference to Dostoevsky’s “old stones.” The cultural dialogue between Russia and Italy is revealed by the writer through musical ekphrasis (Venetian gondoliers’ songs), which also incorporates intertextual tradition (Goethe, Byron, Pushkin); as well as through Orthodox spiritual chants, which allow the writer to reveal the common Christian origin (code) of Russia and Italy. The author concludes that the intertextually and intermedially multilayered ekphrasis of Zaitsev’s “Italian text” (masterpieces of literature, architecture, painting, and music) allows for a visual and auditory representation of the cultural dialogue between Russia and Italy in its ontological and transcendental essence.

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