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Россия в жизни и творчестве Г.Х. Манро: взгляд писателя и журналиста
The aim of the paper is to analyze the place Russia held in the work and life of Hector Hugh Munro, an English satirical writer and journalist of the late 19th – first quarter of the 20th century. The study relies on the philological investigation of H.H. Munro’s stories, novels and plays, the information found in memoirs (E. Munro, R. Reynolds, Lady C. Asquith), academic research conducted by philologists (A.J. Langguth, S. Byrne, B. Gibson), commentaries given by the writer’s contemporaries (N. Coward, G.K. Chesterton, A. Milne, M. Baring) and his articles. The author’s acquaintance with Russia is considered in the context of his business trips to St.-Petersburg and his encounters with men of Russian letters and culture. The paper contains information concerning H.H. Munro’s studies of Russian history and his work on a historical thesis on the country’s development up to the reign of Peter I. The philological reading of H.H. Munro’s work demonstrates that the Russian theme is intertwined with the main motifs of his texts: opposing wild nature and the human world, the satirical exposure of social hypocrisy among the representatives of the British high society in different storylines. From the linguistic point of view, references to Russia are accompanied with the use of formal lexis in the descriptions of banal situations, and the characters’ dialogues marked by a high degree of aesthetic involvement, deformed quotations, paradoxes, and play upon words. H.H. Munro’s vision of early 20th century Russia is closely connected with his concerns over the future of England on the verge of the First World War. The results of the paper can be used in courses on the history of literature, literary critics, and in translating H.H. Munro’s work into Russian.