The Play of A.P. Chekhov "The Seagull": Literary Questions and Folk Answers

Folklore and literature form the system - the Russian art literature. Many questions which are given by the literary work can be resolved with bringing in of folklore material. In a basis of a plot of the play of A. P. Chekhov "The Seagull" laid down a real story of drama love and attempt of suicide of the artist I. Levitan. However, despite a set of the works devoted to "The Seagull", many questions remain controversial. Main of them - which of heroes is "seagull" what symbolical sense of this image and why for the art statement which cornerstone real events are the playwright chose such symbolical language. The view of the play from the point of view of traditional culture and folklore forces to join those researchers who believe that a seagull - an image-symbol and that it is symbolically connected with Nina Zarechnaya. Nina is often compared to the heroine of the drama of Pushkin's "Mermaid" and to A. N. Ostrovsky's heroines Larisa and Katerina. Among the called images there is no actress. But they are united by motive of the ruined feminine destiny. The plot about the ruined life os a girl is implemented in national fairy tales and in a complex of national ideas of mermaids, in that its part which considers mermaids of the girls drowned from unfortunate love. It is possible folklore "key" to interpretation of Chekhov's play. At structure of Nina's image there are both "seagull", and "mermaid" motives. The bird is an image of the girl bride, characteristic of wedding poetry. In the magic fairy tale the wonderful spouse of the hero, his magic assistant or the victim of evil sorcery often has bird's shape. In the South Russian national songs, well-known to the writer, the plot about the seagull mourning the baby birds is widespread. In the North of Russia there were representations that the daughter cursed by the father for the fact that she did not save the maiden honor became a seagull. So the motive of the ruined girl unites national beliefs about a seagull and the mermaid. The reduced plot about the ruined girl which is contained in the curtailed look in an image-symbol of a seagull (mermaid) meets a gap in two years between the third and fourth actions, compensating a lack of events, transferring them to the extra scenic plan. At the general tendency of Chekhov's plays to decentralization, to refusal of one main character that it was repeatedly noted by Chekhov scolars the main image-symbol reunites the play "The Seagull" from within, gives it integrity. The images and motives of "seagull", " mermaid" and "death" connected in the Chekhovian heroine form uniform semantic space.