The motifs of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera “The legend of the invisible city of Kitezh and the maiden Fevroniya” in A.N. Tolstoy's story “Manuscript found under the bed”

A.N. Tolstoy’s short story “Manuscript found under the bed”, written in March 1923, is a brilliant and eminent work from his cycle about the emigration life. It appeared after return of the writer to the Soviet Union, and for decades researchers interpreted this story as discrediting of the White emigration. But peculiar analysis of the story identifies a lot of reminiscences to the Russian and World culture, that expands the topic of this story as a landmark in the writer’s career. The prominent aspect is the musical content of the story, alludes to the popular compositions of 19 and 20 centuries: R. Wagner’s opera “Twilight of the Gods” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya”. The last built the main motif of the story. A passage from “The Invisible City of Kitezh...” accompanies a laboured relationship of friends / enemies Alexander Epanchin and Michael Pomorcev who are the main characters. They are emigrants who live in Paris in 1919 and try to explain their conception of Russian historical destinies. The purpose of my paper is to outline and compare the story and the opera plot by Rimsky-Korsakov. Initially, these works have a problem in common. The legend of the city, disappeared and transfigurated, was widespread in the late 1910s. I prove some correspondences in the system of characters and their imagery. In this mood, Grishka Kuterma has many to do with Michael Pomorcev. They are both traitors and cause of catastrophic development. The opera and the story have a common detail, a letter. When the Maiden Fevroniya lived in Kitezh with the Prince, she sent a message to Grishka Kuterma. In A. Tolstoy Epanchin writes to his friend from the Soviet Union. Epanchin begs his friend to understand the core of his tragic life. I defined a common ground of the opera and the story in the problem statement, system of images and genre usage (the letter / the manuscript).