The structure and meaning of Pushkin's dramatic essay «Cherez nedelyu budu v Parizhe nepremenno...» («I will certainly be in Paris next week..»)

Object of the article: Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's dramatic essay “Cherez nedelyu budu v Parizhe nepremenno…” ("I will certainly be in Paris in a week...") (1834-35). Subject of the article: structure and meaning of Pushkin's text. Purpose of research: uncovering the hidden meaning of the essay. Research methods: methods of literary research, method of structural-semantic analysis. Results: The authors argue that a hidden motif of false rape allegation hints at a possible death of the hero. That motif is implied by the final scene of the story and separately is encoded by the anagram found in the name of the hero. Foreshadowing of Dorvil’s possible death is also conveyed through the motif of winking; similar use of the winking motif keeps recurring in Pushkin’s other works, in particular, in “Poltava”, “The Captain's Daughter” and “The Queen of Spades”. Field of application: literary criticism, teaching Russian literature of the 19th century. Conclusions: the theme of revenge and motif of duel between the lover and the heroine's husband prefigure the probable outcome of the story. Pushkin's essay belongs to a special type of literary texts that include 1) interrupted narration, 2) hidden meaning (implying the need for a virtual reconstruction of the background),3) possibility of reconstructing both the background and the outcome of the story that is left "behind the scenes".