THE RECEPTION OF CHEKHOV’S «CASE» CHARACTER IN CHINA

The relevance of the research is due to the increased attention of modern literary criticism to the specifics of foreign understanding of Russian classics. For the first time, the article provides an overview of the reception of the hero of A. P. Chekhov’s short story “The Man in the Case” in Chinese culture of the XXth century and in the first quarter of the XXIst century, and their periodization is undertaken and justified. The article describes the history of transformations in interpretations of the main character – Belikov: from his purely ideologized understanding as a reactionary conservative (1950s-1980s) to the humanistic and existential, but while maintaining the ideological component (1990-2020s); from the perception of Belikov as a typical image to the understanding of his individual characteristics. It is indicated that the ideas about the satirical portrayal of Belikov by the Russian classic were replaced by the end of the twentieth century by the attention of interpreters to the versatile portrayal of the hero and the writer’s coverage of the tragicomic and tragic in his life. The issue of the role of Soviet and Russian studies of Chekhov’s writings in the history of Chinese interpretations is considered, special attention is paid to the reasons that determined the great importance of the works of V. V. Ermilov and G. P. Berdnikov in different decades (1960 – 1970s; 2015). It is argued that the special stability of the “case” hero in the Chinese reception is determined by a number of factors, among which the priority is historical and cultural, due to the continuing relevance of the problem of conservatism and progressive renewal for the culture of China in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.