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La Siberia dei miserabili: da Korolenko a Čechov, l’altro volto degli sconfinati spazi
The Siberia of the Miserable: from Korolenko to Chekhov, the Other Face of the Boundless Spaces
Faggionato, Raffaella
2024
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e-ISSN
2283-5482
Abstract
During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the Russian government launched a “colonization” plan on Siberia, promoting the eastbound migration of farmers and establishing a system of correctional institutions in the region, which was flaunted as highly innovative. Both neo-Slavophile, as well as populist and liberal intellectuals greeted the plan enthusiastically. So, like often before in Russian history, it was literature to take on the role of critical conscience of the Country. Vladimir Korolenko and Anton Chekhov were the dissenting voices amid the enthusiastic crowd. Free from ideological prejudice, they portrayed a world of prisoners and fugitives, of wanderers and pilgrims: their works, which reveal the truth about Siberia to the wider world, depict a reality of suffering and decay but also full of poetry.
Nell’ultimo ventennio dell’Ottocento il governo russo avviò un progetto di “colonizzazione” della Siberia, favorendo la migrazione contadina verso est e istituendo in quella regione un sistema carcerario sbandierato come all’avanguardia. Tanto l’intelligencija neo-slavofila che quella liberale e populista accolsero il progetto con entusiasmo. Come spesso è accaduto nella storia russa, fu la letteratura ad assumersi il ruolo di coscienza critica del Paese. Le voci di Vladimir Korolenko e Anton Čechov si levarono, dissonanti in questo coro entusiastico, per raccontare senza preconcetti ideologici un mondo di reclusi e fuggitivi, vagabondi e pellegrini: nelle loro opere di ambientazione siberiana, spesso frutto di un’originale commistione di lirismo e osservazione oggettiva, è rappresentata una realtà di sofferenza e degrado, e tuttavia anche colma di poesia.
During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the Russian government launched a “colonization” plan on Siberia, promoting the eastbound migration of farmers and establishing a system of correctional institutions in the region, which was flaunted as highly innovative. Both neo-Slavophile, as well as populist and liberal intellectuals greeted the plan enthusiastically. So, like often before in Russian history, it was literature to take on the role of critical conscience of the Country. Vladimir Korolenko and Anton Chekhov were the dissenting voices amid the enthusiastic crowd. Free from ideological prejudice, they portrayed a world of prisoners and fugitives, of wanderers and pilgrims: their works, which reveal the truth about Siberia to the wider world, depict a reality of suffering and decay but also full of poetry.
Journal
Source
Raffaella Faggionato, "Il grande volo della gru di Blok: da nome a simbolo" in: "Slavica Tergestina 32 (2024/I)", EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste, 2024, pp. 244-279
Languages
it
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International