Private interest and common good: echo of the great reforms era in Ivan Goncharov's novel The precipice

The article traces the impact of historic background on one of the key characters of Goncharov’s novel The Precipice -an old landlady, grandmother Tatiana Markovna Berezhkova. Numerous details hidden in the text imply that the way Berezhkova manages her estate, as well as her life principles, improve overtime. An indirect evidence of the ability to change is provided by her gradual understanding of the common good concept - presumably in response to the changing historic environment in the time of government reforms of Alexander II of Russia. Rooted in Bakhtin’s concept of “new epic”, the article addresses the difference between explicit (as in Tolstoy’s War and Peace) and implicit presentation of historic background - the latter distinguishes Goncharov’s The Precipice. The developing nature of Berezhkova’s character allows to interpret the final metaphor of the novel, another great grandmother - Russia, as a symbol of historic adjustment, and coherent personal and national revival.