Unknown facts on the history of N. S. Leskov's story “The buffoon Pamfalon (ancient legend)”

Some observations on the history of N. S. Leskov’s novel “The Buffoon Pamphalon” are presented in the article. It was established that the starting point for the work’s origin was not the hagiology “In memory of our father diocese Theodoulos”, with which the writer got acquainted upon Prologue’s publication in 1642-1643, but the summary notes made by him in his notebook. While working on the document, N. S. Leskov started debating with the original writing and eventually ended up by introducing a conceptual change. The idea of salvation, declared in the Prologue, was rather obscured in the synopsis. The problem of “Righteousness” happened to be the most important and interesting issue for the writer. According to the author’s interpretation it was the buffoon Cornelius who was truly righteous but not the stylite Theodoulos, as it was written in the original text. In comparison to the stylite’s righteousness, the baffoon’s righteousness is not only a conceptual idea, but the essence of Presence. Such understanding of the original text conditioned the further direction of changes introduced by the author (a changed name of the Lives, an introduction of biographical/psychological characteristics of characters, a reduction of episodes). A revised plot of the Prologue started to gain new relevance in Leskov ‘s perception in 1886. On the basis of his new perception the writer created a story “God-pleasing buffoon” (revised - 1886). Maintaining and developing the initial ideological core of the hagiology, N. S. Leskov developed the Prologue into a moral and philosophical story of righteousness as a service to people, an earthly world as a teaching school, a way of overcoming self-righteousness, a way of accepting personal wrongdoings, and recovery of lost relationship with God and the world. Upon prohibition of the 1887 edition by the secular and religious censorship N. S. Leskov was forced to make changes in his novel. To disguise religious sources of the first variant published in 1886 the author changed the former name of the story for the “The Buffoon Pamphalon”, gave new names to the story characters, replaced the name of Origen by his nickname Adamant, and excluded the Prologue’s quotes. All other changes had creative character (the epigraph, the final conversion). In the new edition of 1887 (2 edition, 1886) under the same title he eliminated previously made formal changes (Prologue’s quotes and the name of Origen). Some archival materials introduced in the study are cited for the first time.