THE SOURCE OF I. I. CHEMNITZER’S FABLE THE LETTERS

The paper shows that the plot of Ivan Chemnitzer’s fable The Letters is based on an anecdote that went into wide circulation in 1779-1781, after its first publication in Annales Politiques, Civiles et Littéraires... Chemnitzer probably read it in the German translation, published in the Chronologen magazine. New facts suggests that the fable dates back to 1780 — the first half of 1782. Chemnitzer’s fable is rather different from its source in terms of plot as well as idea. While the anecdote is about a simple inscription that highbrow scholars find too difficult to interpret, the fable features a king who deliberately propounds a riddle to the scholars, so as to deride their pointless sophistication.

18th century, Russian-French and Russian-German literary connections, comparative literature, poetics, plot transformation, fable, anecdote.