‘In the language of my foreign fatherland’: An ‘unknown letter’ by J. M. R. Lenz

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between self and others in the novel Unknown Letters by Oleg Yuryev, a Russian writer of Jewish origin who lived in Germany. The combination of Russian, Jewish and German elements in his work makes the problem of national identity particularly relevant. The characters of the novel, which includes three fictitious letters, are ‘little men’ belonging to three centuries of Russian history. Yuryev’s image of a ‘little man’ is a continuation of such traditional images as an eccentric or holy fool. The article provides a detailed analysis of the letter by J. M. R. Lenz to the Russian writer N. M. Karamzin. J. M. R. Lenz was a German writer of the 18th century who lived in Russia for over ten years and had a great influence on the development of Russian sentimentalism, as well as the study of Shakespeare and Goethe. However, the real addressee of Lenz’s letter is Goethe. In the images of Goethe and Lenz, Yuryev contrasts two worldviews — individualistic and universalistic. Lenz’s emotional appeal to Goethe, which was made on the last day of Lenz’s life, symbolizes Europe’s appeal to Russia, a call for unity based on the rejection of materialism and selfishness of individualistic culture, and for the construction of a new humanism on the principles of universal understanding, forgiveness and love.

Lenz’s letter can be seen as a modern variation of the discourse on national identity in Russia and Germany, which goes back to the origins of modernism. Representatives of both Russian and German humanism maintained that national identity is an intermediate stage on the way to acquiring a supra-national — i. e., universal — human identity that overcomes the confrontation between the West and the East.