ON THE QUESTION OF THE PRETEXTS OF THE ISTORY OF ONE CITY BY M.E. SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN

The article discusses the introductory chapter of the History of One City by M.Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin and argues that the interpretation of the villainous Roman emperors (Caligula and Nero) by the fictional author of the introduction as a kind of symbolic figures - models for famous rulers - was inspired by the assessment of the “glorious” crimes of the French robber Cartush in the introduction of Matvei Komarov’s book The Story of the Swindler Van’ka Cain . The author of The History of One City , using the model of assimilating a morally flawed domestic historical personality to foreign criminals, replaces the ingenuous admiration characteristic of the pretext with an ironic one. The parallel with the book about Van’ka Kain is not the only echo with the works of Russian literature of the 18th century in the introduction to the chronicle of Saltykov-Shchedrin. The text of introduction also reveals a correlation with the Ode of 1747 by M.V. Lomonosov.