“Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Truth”: Biblical Allusions in N. S. Leskov’s Novella “The Vale”

Abstract

N. S. Leskov, Russian classic author of the second half of the 19th century, throughout his work actively turned to the Old and New Testaments, which was expressed in a significant number of biblical quotations and allusions in his works. Until now, there is no separate study on the functioning of biblical “text” in the writer’s prose. Within the framework of the proposed work, borrowings from the Old and New Testaments in one of Leskov’s last large-form works, the story, or, in the author’s definition, the “rhapsody” “The Vale,” are analyzed. The novelty of the study is determined by the fact that it identifies and interprets quotes and allusions from the Psalter, the prophetic books of Baruch and Isaiah, as well as the Gospel of John, used by the writer, which were not previously noticed in literary criticism. The article proves that Leskov’s biblical allusions are not disparate fragments of a “foreign” text, they function in a single semantic field of the work and form its subtext, help the writer convey to the reader the results of his moral and religious searches.