The author’s myth in V. Astafyev’s novel “The merry soldier”

Annotation

The article deals with the genesis and function of the author’s myth in the late prose of V. Astafyev (1924–2001). It is indicated that the myth of the pit, associated with the image of death, is rooted in the texts of Astafyev and is relevant for interpretation for a number of literary works of the writer. This is due to the significant influence on the prose writer’s work of Russian folklore, the preceding literary tradition, with the influence of biblical texts and East Slavic mythology. It is argued that the same origins are characteristic of V. Astafyev’s late prose image and motif of sleep. Actualization of the motive of a nightmare in V. Astafyev’s prose of the 1990s allows us to assume an increase (associated with the peculiarities of age) of the tragic worldview of the writer, his ideological, emotive, structural and poetic overlap with the postmodern literature of the 1990s.

Keywords

V. Astafyev, myth, “The Merry Soldier”, novel, prose.

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This research was supported by grant No. 23–18–
00408 from the Russian Science Foundation, https://rscf.ru/project/23–18–00408/; Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy named after F. M. Dostoevsky.