The article is devoted to the actual problem of interpretation of the func-tional masks of the artist, which allow solving specific artistic and journalistic tasks in a playful way. The object of the research is the publicist mask of A.S. Pushkin “Theophylact Kosichkin”, a comprehensive study of which demonstrates various strategies of Pushkin the writer and the game multidimensionality of his literary personality. The main results of the study show the special nature of this mask. Pushkin creates not just a name, but a game personality endowed with character, social position, biography — something on the verge of a mask and a self-portrait. Kosichkin was created to solve the specific task of total exposure of the “impostor” Bulgar, but not by direct polemic, but with the help of a literary game that should confuse the enemy. Using a journalistic feuille-ton and the mask of a “self-styled” author, Pushkin invades the opponent’s field, putting his ideas into the mouth of a “naive reader”, and this collective image of a reader-consumer of fiction reveals the quality of such literature. The game “impostor”, being an instrument in the hands of the true creator, in this way forces the real “impostors” (from the point of view of the true state of affairs, and not their ideas) to reveal themselves. The “literary personali-ty” of Theofilakt Kosichkin organically fits into a number of pseudonyms-masks united by such common features as functionality, playful nature, imposture and self-portraiture. All these features are reflections of certain facets of Pushkin’s talent, prisms, as if function-ally narrowing, focusing his multidimensionality to perform certain creative tasks.
For citation:
Lukyanova S.M. The frenzied Theophylact. The pseudonym of A.S. Pushkin as a self-portrait, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2022, iss. 3, pp. 28—38.