From intertexts to meaning: On the optics of “the Black Monk” by A. P. Chekhov

The article discusses the intertextual poetics of A. Chekhov’s story “The Black Monk,” the plot of which is generally interpreted as the hero’s transition from the field of reality to the field of illusion. The illusion is related to art, which in the story is represented by the Pesotsky Garden - a space isolated from reality that finally drives Kovrin crazy, plunging him into the temptation to feel as a chosen one. The problem of interpreting the “Black Monk” is due to the fact that the reader of the story, like Kovrin, falls into the optical trap set up by the author, associated with the dual status of the garden, which can be interpreted both as a model of reality and as a model of art. Particular attention is paid to the structure of the “Garden” chronotope, which reproduces the structure of the mystery theater, and the optical deformations that this theater provokes. The Pesotsky Garden is updated as an optical memory machine that deforms Kovrin’s vision, the vision of a monk - as a product of the garden, the embodiment of the eerie/disquiet, the phenomenon of representationalism and intertextuality. Pesotsky, Kovrin and the monk are seen as doubles. The intertextual field of “The Black Monk” actualizes “Sandman” and “Viy”, as well as Chekhov’s “The Student”. Like Nathanael and Khoma Brut, Kovrin finds himself between worlds and succumbs to the call of the archaic memory, immersed in the slumber of reason that brings forth a monster - The Black Monk who awakens the illusion of superiority in an ordinary person. The same illusion, but under the influence of other external factors, awakens in the student Velikopolskiy (“The Student”), who makes his debut as an apostle, reading his first sermon. Polemicizing against the romantic tradition that developed the theme of the superiority of illusion over reality, the author of “The Black Monk”, referring the reader to this tradition (actualized by intertexts), shows this superiority as a delusion, the cost of which is a ruined life. Thus, the intertextual polyphyny of the “Black Monk” is based on the problem of relations between art and reality - the two worlds between which Chekhov places the theater zone as a transitional locus.

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