Reception of the story of Faust in modern prose: ‘Mock Faustus' by Margeris Zarins translated into Russian

This article provides reflections on the contact connections with Goethe (including through other authors of the story of Faust) in the novel by the Latvian prose writer Margeris Zarins (Marģeris Zariņš, 1910-1993) Mock Faustus, or The Corrected Complemented Cooking-Book CCC (1984). The subject of the study is the translated text as a cross-border object (the novel was translated into Russian by Valda Volkovskaya). The writer plays with the codes of different versions of Faust - from the book published by Spies, through the mediation of Christopher Marlowe (Zarins constantly mentions and quotes his The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus) and Goethe (Faust is also directly mentioned and quoted) to Thomas Mann and Bulgakov, and this is perfectly conveyed by the translator. In the depiction of the pact between man and the devil, Zarins demonstrates the integral form of contacts with Marlow, Goethe, Thomas Mann, and Bulgakov, in the creation of the central character - the musician - with Thomas Mann, in the display of political and literary life through the procession of the devil with his retinue through the capital - with Bulgakov. The differential form of contacts is manifested through the denial of God's salvation of Faust (Master, musician, etc.) and of the granting of peace to him. Faust by the Latvian author is a fiend of hell, a werewolf, an executioner, and a commandant of a Nazi concentration camp. The differential form of contacts is also manifested through the deliberate shuffling of the motifs related to the prototypes. Mock Faustus by M. Zarins and translator V. Volkovskaya is a complex combination of intertextual and translational secondary authorial transgredience. The writer escapes the influence of a number of works, the translator inherits intertextual secondary authorial transgredience and even a chain of intertextual secondary authorial outness (Marlow, Goethe, Bulgakov, Thomas Mann, etc.).