Pushkin in search of fact and fiction: "The Captain’s Daughter" and the study of Pugachev’s rebellion
The SPbU Representative Office in Spain invites you to the online lecture "Pushkin in search of fact and fiction: 'The Captain’s Daughter' and the study of Pugachev’s rebellion" by Yanina Myznikova, PhD in Philology from the SPbU.
It is well known that Alexander Pushkin is considered the creator of the modern Russian literary language. His works combined the vernacular, archaisms, borrowings, Church Slavonic style and colloquial speech, creating a universal, rich and expressive literary base.
Pushkin's greatest achievement as a prose writer is his last major completed work, the historical novel "The Captain's Daughter," in which the author combined the skills of a master wordsmith and a researcher.
In order to write the novel about the peasant uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev, Pushkin embarked on a research trip to the Volga region and the Orenburg steppes - the very places where the uprising took place. He studied both the landscape of the region and the lifestyle of the Ural Cossacks, interviewed surviving witnesses and their family members, and recorded local folklore and legends about Pugachev. All this material formed the basis of the novel.
Let us immerse ourselves in the rebellious and often violent atmosphere of these regions, learn about the people Pushkin met, the things he heard and saw there. We will also discuss the ideas and interests that preoccupied the writer in the last years of his life, and the surprising talents that remained untapped.
Lecturer
Yanina Myznikova, PhD in Philology, is the Acting Head of the Russian Language Department at SPbU and teaches courses on the history of the Russian language and dialectology, lexicology, morphology and word formation, and speech act theory.
Myznikova leads and participates in student field trips to collect dialect materials, and is the author of two monographs describing the plight of Russian dialects in a foreign language environment in Northwest Russia and the Volga region. She is also the author of papers and course materials, supervises undergraduate and graduate theses, and collaborates with the Russian Society "Knowledge."
Research interests: history and dialectology of the Russian language, fieldwork, sociolinguistics and linguistic area studies, and related disciplines: communication theory, folklore and ethnography.
The lecture is a part of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the oldest university in Russia — SPbU. It will be held online in Russian with simultaneous translation into Spanish.