Prose by Yevgenia Maykova in the context of the same old story by Ivan Goncharov

The article is devoted to two romantic stories written by Ekaterina Maykova "Maria" (1835), and "Woman" (1850). The study is associated with biographical, comparative and typological methods. The article focuses on the prose of the owner of the literary house. Her prose bore the stamp of the transitional time in Russian literature of the 19th century. The time when the aesthetic foundations of Ivan Goncharov’s work were laid and developed. Goncharov was a close friend of the Maykov’s family. The early work of the writer and his first novel "The same old story" (1847) is an artistic reflection of the time, ideological problems and disputes regarding the development of Russian literature during the transition from romanticism to realism. The plot of the ultra-romantic story "Maria" has a connection with "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin. The connection is in the image of Tatyana Larina and at the same time the connection with the romantic Alexander Aduev from "The same old story" by Goncharov. The three heroes are brought together by their passion for the English poet Byron. A decade and a half later, the writer published the story Woman, in which realistic features emerge more and more clearly. The text seems to repeat the plot of Pushkin's novel in verse in the love line. Realistic denouement of the story by Maykova turns out to be akin to the ending of "The same old story", the text of which was written by Goncharov in the Maykov’s literary house. Prose experiments of Maykova turn out to be extremely important for explaining Goncharov’s dialectical attitude towards romantic traditions throughout his work. The stories written by the head of the literary house reflect the movement towards realistic trends, psychologism inherent to the Russian classical novel.