Opus magnum of Yuri Polyakov: the intertextual dialogue of “A Goatling in Milk” with J. W. von Goethe’s “Faust”

The aim of the study is to identify elements of intertextual dialogue with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s drama “Faust” in the text of Yuri Polyakov’s novel “A Goatling in Milk”. The research material includes the text of Polyakov’s novel and the text of “Faust” in the translations of N. Kholodkovsky and B. Pasternak. An explicit reference to Goethe’s text appears in the frame narrative of the novel, while implicit connections with the text are constructed through a system of motifs that shape the development of the plot in “A Goatling in Milk”. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that previous works on the intertextual nature of Polyakov’s novel have neither named nor examined “Faust”. Thus, this article is the first one to introduce “Faust” as part of the source circle of Polyakov’s novel text. As a result of the research, references to Goethe’s text were systematized, elements of intertextual dialogue were demonstrated, and a connection was noted not only with the text of “Faust” itself but also with its literary reputation. An important aspect in the context of the novel’s plot is the archetypal situation of a person’s seduction by fame and worldly success and its consequences: the narrator acts as Mephistopheles, while Viktor Akashin, turned into a famous writer through the narrator’s efforts, plays the role of Faust. This “wandering plot” of European literature is transposed by Yuri Polyakov into the realities of the late 1980s and early 1990s.