Truth over Telos: Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Reconsideration of the Chronicler in The History of a Town

• In Event: Literary Landscapes of Collision: Life and Afterlives of Russian Realism

Abstract

This paper will explore Saltykov-Shchedrin’s use of the figure of the chronicler (letopisets) in his 1870 novel The History of a Town. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s literary predecessors often used “chronicler” characters either to mock the style of premodern chronicles, comment on the underdeveloped state of history-writing in Russia, or simply enhance their use of the “found manuscript” topos. Saltykov-Shchedrin, however, presents his chronicler not as a servile caricature or mere device, but as a fully realized character who engages in productive dialogue with the “historian” of History of a Town. I argue that Saltykov-Shchedrin’s chronicler, in his ironic asides and refusal to impose a coherent narrative structure on history, represents a possible “Realist” alternative to the existing conventions of nineteenth-century Russian history-writing.

Author

• Emma George, Princeton U