The poetics of compliment in the works of Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy

   This article examines the compliment as a speech act and artistic device in 19^th-century Russian literature.

   Its relevance stems from the need to understand the values of noble culture, which will allow us to uncover the speech mechanisms of social hierarchy and verbal manipulation, previously neglected by philologists.

   The aim of the study was to identify the main types and functions of the compliment in works of fiction such as Eugene Onegin and The Captain's Daughter by Alexander Pushkin, and War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

   To achieve this goal, the following tasks were addressed: classifying speech strate g ies of complementarity, analyzing their role in characterization and plot development, a nd tracing changes in the use of this device.

   The scientific novelty lies in the use of a lingua-pragmatic approach to identifying the typology of speech strategies through comparisons that go beyond traditional stylistic description.

   The methodological basis of the study is speech act theory, lingua-pragmatic analysis, and lingua-stylistic analysis. The paper analyzes the functions of the compliment in the speech characterization of characters, plot development, and the reflection of social norms in literary texts. The study reveals the evolution of the compliment's function in 19^th-century Russian literature: from an instrument of social irony and typification in Pushkin’s works to a means of a deep psychological analysis and moral diagnosis in Tolstoy ’s works. It was established that adherence to or violation of the norms of sincerity transforms this speech act into an active element of plot formation, characterizing the spiritual integrity or manipulativeness of the characters. The function of the compliment evolves: in Pushkin’s works, it serves as a tool of social irony and character typification, while in Tolstoy’s works, it becomes a means of psychological analysis and moral evaluation of the characters. Prospects for further work are seen in expanding the corpus of texts studied, as well as in a comparative analysis of speech strategies.

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