2018 Issue №4

Having considered one of the interviews, given by A. S. Byatt, the author concludes that the writer’s attitude to Russia is largely mediated by the Russian literature from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Pelevin. The researcher brings forward the problem of mythologization and demythologization of the image of Russia, and stresses the fact, that the fictional (Tatarinov) and real (Stepnyak, Kropotkin) images of Russian anarchists are given in the perception of the British. The author comes to the conclusion that the reminiscences of Russian culture do not so much support the national myth as they reveal the state of European culture on the eve of the First World War. The author focuses on the references to the Russian tomb (Raca or reliquary) at the beginning of the novel and Diaghilev’s ballet “Petrushka” in the last part. These reminiscences are closely related to Europe (England — Gloucester candelabrum, Germany — music by Richard Wagner, puppet theater). Therefore, raca (reliquary) is only supposedly called “Russian,” and the names of the creators of “Petrushka”, Russian composers and artists (Stravinsky, Benois, and others) are not mentioned at all. Nevertheless, the reminiscences of Russian culture unexpectedly bring together the images of religious (relic) and carnival (Petrushka doll) cultures, which are constantly “reviving” in the works of various types of art.

The Paradise theme in Andersen’s fairy tales determines the system of images, the values of the hero and the author, the type and specific features of symbolism. The article shows, how the Paradise theme is related to the categories of life and death, time and eternity. The author lays a special stress on the role of Scripture text, which organizes the hierarchy of the value-semantic space of fairy tales. In view of the Paradise theme, the researcher defines the semantic connotation of the category of border, separating the mundane vain world and the other world — the world of Beauty.

The article studies the representation of acoustic imagery in N. Kononov’s novels. The research focuses on musical ekphrasis and musical code in the context of all the acoustic nominations found in the texts. In the system of sensory codes, under the concept of "musical", the author puts the idea of reflection and introspection. The specific feature of Kononov’s style is its correlation with the visual and the tactile, it expresses the separation of the visible into the hidden and the obvious and emphasizes the "otherness" of the subject of perception. Thus, hearing is a means of individualization of the subject, a resource, permitting to disclose its unique personal and psychophysical features. The subjectively colored auditory is always eventful: the most important milestones in formation of personal self-consciousness correlate with musical ekphrasis. The musical code aims at giving the representation of meanings, perceived by the subject as "intimate", inimitable, possessing the quality of sensual revelation.

The article states that a short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940) by Jorge Luis Borges is the pretext of Nikolay Kononv’s novel “Parade” (2015). The author shows, how Kononov reproduces and, at the same time, develops the main themes from Borges’ story, resorting to geographical and anagrammatic codes, the principle of metaphorical reflection and a play upon words. The researcher interprets the hidden codes in the novel “Parade”, deciphers the names of characters, reveals allusions to the work “The City of the Sun” by Tommaso Campanella, reconstructs the semantic complex of language, philosophy and homeland, inherent in both works.