2019 Issue №2

The article analyses various means of creating the image of Barclay de Tolly, a great Russian commander who played, according to historians, a deci­sive role in defeating Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812. The author con­cludes that his portraying in the novel was very powerful not only due to the re-creation of the dominating attitude towards the general of that time but al­so to Tolstoy’s philosophy of history. According to Tolstoy, the course of events is caused by the interaction of two wills — divine and human.

The author's individual perception of the concept of Joy is identified in C. S. Lewis's spiritual autobiography «Surprised by Joy». The correlation be­tween the author's individual and cultural-linguistic perception of the con­cept of Joy is analysed. The research shows that Evangelic meaning of the con­cept is actualized whereas a secular linguistic meaning of the concept of Joy as «pleasure, worldly happiness» is de-actualized in Lewis's text.

The article explores the meaning and functions of photography in W. G. Se­bald's works exemplified by his novels “The Rings of Saturn” and “Auster­litz”. The relevance of the study of the intermediary component, the photo­graphic one, in the novels of the German writer is confirmed by the abundance of works on this problem written by Western literary critics. Early novels of W. G. Sebald have been studied in more detail. Photography performs an illus­trative function in them. In “The Ring of Saturn” and “Austerlitz” the sig­nificance of visual inserts for the formation of the narrative is determined by their absolute integration with the text. I hold that photography in W. G. Se­bald’s works is the embodiment of a collective memory of the past. It encour­ages the creation of personal history and evokes individual memories. It com­plements the narrative and reveals parallels between different fragments of the narrative, which are not linked textually.