“Amur Wolves” – “Secrets of Zeya”: an episode of creative rivalry in the Priamurye literature of the early XX century

Abstract

One of the consequences of the increasing interest in regional cultural phenomena in modern historical and literary science is the emergence of a number of studies devoted to the most significant writers of the Amur region at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries: L. Volkov, F. Chudakov, A. Matyushensky etc. However, their work is usually considered in isolation, each in its own right, out of connection with other phenomena, in isolation from the general trends in the literary life of the Far East and Russia as a whole. The creation of a holistic picture, a full-fledged history of Russian literature in the Far East is not an immediate prospect. Today's task is to purposefully "launch" this process, including the identification of literary interrelations, various kinds of "dialogues", "interlocutions", "disputes", "couplings", "crossings", "repulsions", which form a living literary process. The purpose of this article is to consider in interrelation two works created at the same time by the brightest writers of the Amur region – A. Matyushensky and F. Chudakov.