“Crypto-estate mythology” in the story by Arcady P. Gaidar “On the count’s ruins”

The article analyzes the estate mythology in the story by Arcady P. Gaidar “On the Count’s Ruins” (1928) with the help of new theoretical tools relevant to the “estate text” in Russian literature of the Soviet period, which differs from the era of the Silver Age in a number of ways. A new term “crypto-estate mythology” has been put forward, the essence of which is the implicit presence in the work of a positive “estate myth” of the turn of the 19th 20th centuries under the cover of Soviet neo-mythology as dreams of a just social system and the upbringing of a new person, on the one hand, or as the denial of a landowner’s estate because of the vices and exploitative nature of its owners on the other. It is proved that, despite the criticism of pre-revolutionary orders, Gaidar’s story is an organic part of the “estate text” of Russian literature of the 19th early 20th century both in its “Gothic mode” and in the aspect of affirming the ideal of “paradise on earth” inherent in both the traditional “estate culture” and the new Soviet system. Thanks to the discovery of “crypt-estate mythology” in the story, it is concluded that the true heirs of the enduring values of the age-old “estate culture” are not the count’s, landowner’s children who betrayed the high ideals of their ancestors, but Soviet schoolchildren of the late 1920s from simple peasant families, for whom the former owner’s estate becomes a public, national treasure. The research was carried out using elements of thesaurus, contextual and mythopoetic approaches within the framework of historical poetics, as well as with reference to the biographical method.