LITERARY VENTRILOQUISM: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRAMING AND FRAMED NARRATIVE IN MIKHAIL SALTYKOV-SHCHEDRIN'S THE HISTORY OF A TOWN.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-89) is often classified as a social realist and positioning him as a late romantic figure was seen as an attempt to diminish the sociopolitical impact of his novels. This classification, however, hinders a comprehensive understanding of the complex kaleidoscope of mutually enhancing and mutually contradicting viewpoints, as well as in the ambiguous gaps and distances between each voice that persist even in Saltykov-Shchedrin's late novel The History of a Town (1870). This article examines Saltykov-Shchedrin's narrative strategy using the term "literary ventriloquism"--a rhetorical technique that involves a dialogue between deviant and conventional narration and an ostensible fight for supremacy in narration. I contend that the distinctive forms of heteroglossia found in Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel The History of a Town can trace its origin back to his early romantic passion, to its "literary ventriloquism." This technique of framing and employing fantastical storytelling elements while remaining in the realist convention allows Saltykov-Shchedrin to bridge the seemingly disparate epistemological concerns of Russian romanticism and Russian realism. This amalgam of romantic techniques and realistic ends makes Saltykov-Shchedrin's work a representative of a new realism, which is fundamentally rooted in epistemological pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]