2022 Issue №4

The article considers the results of the memory motive study in the novel of M. Maron, a modern German writer. The syncretic nature of memory is analyzed in terms of memory and forgetting as necessary components of this phenomenon. For this study, the process of purposeful ousting certain fragments connected to the late love story with a tragic finale, from the storyteller’s past, has been analysed. The selective nature of the nameless character’s retrospective activity is based on the desire to level out her commitment to the death of her beloved who betrayed her. The author concludes that the role of the forgetting leitmotiv in the text of the novel is forming.

The article examines the scope and significance of semantic transformations of the secondary text — the fairy tale Der Ritter Blaubart” by Alfred Döblin. The article reveals that the transformation of the tale, which emerged in the stream of post-modernism, is a complex formation which reveals both the features of a passed epoch — the grammatical phenomena with historical coloring, and the features of modern realities, expressed by stylistic anachronisms. The paper identifies semantic transformations of the original fairy tale, suggesting that the author deliberately refracts the original text through a certain gender and ethnic “prism”. As a result, the primary vector in the space “villain — victim” is shifted: a villain is transformed into a hero, and an innocent victim is taken to heaven. The study reveals the role of landscape descriptions in the secondary text, the forces of nature are mythologized in the secondary text, they become the full participants in the action, which gives the secondary text an exceptional fairy-tale intonation, bringing the secondary text to the folktales.

The article examines the artistic realisation of the northern landscape and the system of images of the polar space’ nature in the novel by the French polar writer P.-E. Victor. The relevance of the research is supported not only by the relatively little-studied heritage of P.- E. Victor in Russia but also by the poor knowledge of the key aspects of his poetics. The logic of the formation of the visual complex is traced, which combines the realistic approach to the weather phenomena of the Arctic and their literary psychologization. A close connection is revealed between the images of snow, blizzard, frost, wind and the reflection of the worldview of travelers exhausted by difficult living conditions. Analytical observations of the text of the novel also give grounds to assert that the artistic embodiment of meteorological phenomena occupies a strong textual position in it and reflects the specifics of the narrative style of the genre of diary entries.

The article is devoted to analyzing ideas about prayer reflected in Leo Tolstoy’s diaries. The research has been carried out using methods of continuous sampling of diary notes dedicated to prayer, conceptual analysis aimed at highlighting its cognitive features, as well as private techniques for analyzing the semantics of a keyword. The study has revealed that records of prayer are found throughout the years of keeping a diary. Tolstoy understands prayer as a dialogue with God, as self-understanding. The article analyzes the features of the conceptualization of prayer, objectified by the compatibility of the keyword, and reconstructs the primary image of “Person”: figuratively, prayer is attributed to procedural features inherent in a person. They are characterized by positive connotative evaluation. It is proved that the categorization of prayer using an anthropomorphic cultural code is a consequence of implementing a communicative cognitive strategy. Tolstoy names the following functions of prayer: it helps to achieve harmony, avoid complex emotional states, makes a person strong, spiritually elevates them, protects them from the temptation to sin, helps in self-understanding. An essential aspect of the conceptualization of prayer for Tolstoy is the definition of the conditions for its performance. Tolstoy understands prayer exclusively as an intimate, non-church appeal to God. Tolstoy believes that prayer should be carried out with complete abstraction from everything mundane. Tolstoy warns against mechanical prayer. He completely denies the prayer asking for personal well-being. Tolstoy’s understanding of prayer is dissonant with the conventional one.

The image of Christ is analyzed in Boris Poplavsky’s book of verses “Snowy hour”. Biblical allusions, lyrical plot of poems, composition and an image of lyrical subject are considered. Researched levels of literary text are studied with connection with the image of Christ, whose personality has important place in religious diaries of the poet. This diaries becomes the foundation of the lyrical book and in them theological conception of “Snowy hour” is justified. Contents of the article is presented of analyze and disclosure of main topics , whose are announced in ego-documents of the poet and are founded artistic embodiment in his lyric. Aeon of Christ is the central concept of the work, it goes back to gnostic conception by Valentinus and to the book by D. S. Merezhkovsky “Atlantis-Europe”. This term has two senses in Poplavsky’s art, it explains basic connotations in Christ’s image in “Snowy hour” and in diaries. Firstly, it’s a god-medium between worlds of humans and God; according to Poplavsky this sense includes concepts of earth nature of Christ and His kindness, He’s prophet, who is between Hell and Cosmos and goes the thorny path of the righteous. Secondly, he’s kingdom of spirit, divine space beyond the earthly world, to witch a difficult path leads, which marks a spiritual rebirth of man and world. It explains the specifics of the composition and lyrical plot of the book “Snowy hour”, when the hero is going the special path, the elevation to heaven harmony through overcoming himself human “Luciferian” nature.