Cultural Transfer: The Case of Mikhail Chulkov’s The Comely Cook

Abstract

Scholars have traditionally sought the sources of Mikhail Chulkov’s The Comely Cook, or the Adventures of a Depraved Woman [Prigozhaia povarikha, ili pokhozhdeniia razvratnoi zhenshchiny] of 1770 in Western European novels. In contrast, this article examines Chulkov’s work as a complex example of cultural transfer that took place on several levels: among languages and national traditions; between poetry and prose; on the somewhat indeterminate level of genre; between oral and print, verbal and visual media; and between high and low, popular and highbrow cultural registers.