Odejście króla Leara czy komiczna robinsonada? Recepcja ucieczki Lwa Tołstoja z Jasnej Polany w rosyjsko- i polskojęzycznej prasie Cesarstwa Rosyjskiego

The paper discusses two ways of interpreting Leo Tolstoy’s escape from Yasnaya Polyana (1910) by the Russian- and Polish-language press of the Russian Empire. The first way, represented by Russian newspapers Birzhevye vedomosti and Russkoe slovo, consists in drawing parallels between Tolstoy and King Lear, the protagonist of William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, the second one, shown by Goniec, a popular Polish-language newspaper of the Kingdom of Poland, is based on the motif of robinsonade. Both interpretations are founded on images and motifs from Western literature, which nevertheless serve different means. While the aim of comparing Tolstoy to Lear can be described as an idealizing and mythologizing of the writer’s escape, using the motif of robinsonade serves the purpose of belittling and caricaturing Tolstoy and his act. At the same time, those two interpretations show two types of borders between the Russian- and Polish-language press of the Russian Empire, which can be characterized as cultural and political borders