N. I. STRAKHOV’S WORKS OF SATIRE AND ‘THE FASHIONABLE BOOK’ BY L.-A. CARACCIOLI

In 1790–1793 Nikolai Strakhov publishes The Satirical Bulletin (1790–1792), A Handbook for Winter Moscow Visitors (1791), The Correspondence of Fashion and The Lamentations of Fashion over the Expulsion of Fashionable and Expensive Goods (1793). The paper shows that The Fashionable Book by the French writer Louis-Antoine Caraccioli, published in Russian translation in 1789, could have been one of their literary sources. All the Strakhov’s works mentioned above share a common topic with the book by Caraccioli: fashion. In A Handbook, The Correspondence and The Lamentations of Fashion, as well as in The Fashionable Book, fashion is the only topic, while in the journal The Satirical Bulletin it is central. Perhaps Caraccioli’s satire suggests to Strakhov the very idea of a full-length book dealing entirely with the subject of fashion, the idea the writer develops in his A Handbook and The Correspondence. A Handbook shares one more important feature with its probable French inspiration: a specific mode of communication with the readers. Both books are addressed to fops, who are obsessed with fashion, as if aimed at attracting their attention. In both books fops are given advice characterizing the behavior that is usual in high society. While such recommendations constitute a minor part of Caraccioli’s satire, they predominate in A Handbook. Obviously, the appeal to fops is, in fact, ironic; the advice given to them should not be taken at face value. In both books fashion is the object of satire. Strakhov’s acquaintance with the Russian translation of Caraccioli’s book may be supposed for the reason that this translation is printed by N. Novikov, who at the time, i. e. in the second half of the 1780s, collaborates with Strakhov, publishing his translations of foreign literature. The fact that Strakhov’s works appear soon after the Russian translation of The Fashionable Book serves as an additional argument in favor of their connection.