“Orchid” by N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky: features of the playwright’s communicative strategies

The authors of the article analyze the literary heritage of N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, a writer who has worked in a variety of genres – from a fairy tale to story, from a story to drama. The writer’s dramaturgy characterizes by a relatively low percentage rate of coverage studies on the theoretical level, although it comprises a number of significant features that reflect the drama development at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries – the changes in the dramatic language may be pointed out in Garin’s texts. The article gives a brief description of N.G. Garin’s dramaturgy, and his play “Orchid” is analyzed in detail. The interest of researchers is focused on the organization of the author’s interaction with the reader / viewer and on the certain features of the drama poetics, which make it possible to compare Garin’s play with neo-dramatic aesthetics. Methodologically, the authors rely on the communicative theory and historical poetics. The empirical material is the text of N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky. As a source of factual material, five-volume collected works of the author, published by Goslitizdat Publishing House in 1957–1958, have been used. Among the scientific results of the work the authors point out systematic analysis of the play by Garin-Mikhailovsky, description of the author’s strategies for interacting with the reader / viewer, revealing the structure of central images and key scenes in a dramatic action. In accordance with its inner nature, the play “Orchid” is a kind of dramatized psychological research with a new type of dramatic protagonist, bearing the features of the epic drama with a special “literary quality”, which has been noted by the contemporary reviews relating to the Garin-Mikhailovsky times.