«…Потеря его была бы для меня большой бедой». К истории романа «Истоки» М.А. Алданова

Emigrantica. 2025. № 3. С. 267–281.

Мартынов А. В.

The article reconstructs the history of the creation of the novel Before the Deluge based on the diverse, including previously unpublished, epistolary heritage of M.A. Aldanov. It covers the period from 1942, when the writer began writing the text, to 1948, when he made the last edits to the manuscript of a separate edition. Before the Deluge was conceived by the writer long before the writer long before the beginning of direct work on the fiction, which eventually became the pinnacle of Aldanov’s work. The author explores the reasons for choosing the topic. The writer saw in the regicide on March 1, 1881, described in the book, the start of the events that led to the collapse of Russian statehood in 1917. The process of selecting characters and novel writing itself is traced. Also cited are Aldanov’s disputes with his correspondents about the new work, in particular, his discussion concerning the feasibility of a reliable depiction of both specific historical figures and the entire past era, their comments and assessments of the work are considered. The researcher, using archival sources, corrects the dates of the final completion of the novel manuscript. The complex problems that Aldanov encountered during the search for publishers when printing the Russian edition of Before the Deluge are shown.

Keywords: Бунин, Набоков, Адамович, Nabokov, Алданов, Aldanov, Grebenshhikov, Maklakov, Adamovich, Kuskova, Bunin, Teffi, Zaitsev, YMCA, Гребенщиков, Маклаков, Кускова, Тэффи, Зайцев, YMCA