An autobiographical novel by Sophia Zaitseva ‘The world through the child’s eyes’ in the context of the literary tradition of Leo Tolstoy (‘Childhood’)

The article examines The World Through the Child’s Eyes, a novel being the first work of the autobiographical trilogy by Sophia Zaitseva, a writer belonging to the first wave of Russian emigration. The novel is discussed in the context of the literary tradition of Leo Tolstoy (the story Childhood). It is argued that the structure of the trilogy correlates with the structure of Tolstoy’s trilogy Childhood, Adolescence, Youth. In the story by Zaitseva, there are such characteristic features of the ‘tale of childhood’ as a child hero discovering the world, the space of the house as the organizing space of the character’s life, the image of the family way of life, the development of the principles of depicting the inner world of a child. The study draws parallels with the Tolstoy’s work on the figurative, motivational, spatial, plot levels of the artistic system of the story The World Through the Child’s Eyes. Special attention is paid to the comparison of the images of Nikolenka and Sonya, to the principles of analyzing the inner world of the characters; the paper identifies the similarities and differences in using the method of psychologism, as well as the role of the principle of detachment in the creation of images of the heroes. The article examines the organization of space in The World Through the Child’s Eyes, the relationship of one’s own and another’s in the artistic structure of the works, analyzes the interaction of cultures in Zaitseva’s story. The comparison of the works provides a better understanding of the historical and cultural context of the story by Zaitseva and the role of the tradition of Russian classics in her work.