Boris Akunin e il romanzo antinichilista giudeofobico di fine Ottocento

Abstract

Boris Akunin and 19th century Anti-Nihilistic Judeophobic Novel

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how Boris Akunin works to reconstruct Russian history before Bolshevik revolution, especially through the imitation and revision of Ninetinth Century literary feelings and perceptions. Having reaffirmed the postmodernist nature of The State Counsellor with quotations and arguments, among the others, by Baraban, Rubinštejn, Possamai, Numato, De Lotto, Rančin, to bring new contribution to a better understanding of this peculiar post-modernist novel our work has been made mainly by reviewing the historical parts of The State Counsellor drawing constantly a comparison between this novel and anti-Nihilistic literature.In the article we underline a series of problems related to the syncretism between Boris Akunin’s The State Counsellor and 1) anti-Nihilistic novel, 2) anti-Nihilistic Judeophobic novel of the Seventies, Eighties and fi rst years of the Nineties, particularly a) I.I. Jasinskij’s Po gorjačim sledam (1892), b) V.V. Krestovskij’s T’ma egipetskaja (1888). Akunin’s literary processes to rewrite history into The State Counsellor are clearly based on anti-Nihilistic literary sources, especially those literary topoi as the so-called “group of fi ve”, the “Jewish nihilists behind Bolshevik revolution”, the “Jewish pogrom”, a.s.o.