“We were born to make a fairy tale come true...”: the estate world in G. Sh. Yakhinaʼs novel “My children”

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Abstract

Based on the material of G.Sh. Yakhinaʼs landmark novel “My Children” (2018), the article considers modifications of the “estatetopos” in the Russian literature of the 20th – early 21st century, among which are the connotations traditional for Russian classics (the estate as a paradise on earth and the territory of love and family; the estate as a heterotopia; the estate as a universal), qualities that arose in the literature of the Soviet period (the estate as a refuge; the former ownerʼs estate as a public domain; the estate as Kitezh; the estate as a locus of theurgic creativity), as well as the first identified variations (the estate as Noahʼs Ark; the estate as a Eurasian phenomenon; the estate as “Going into the Forest”). Special attention is paid to the Russian estate of the 20th century as a Eurasian phenomenon, the appearance of which in the novel is due to the role of the river Volga, which connects the destinies of several peoples: Russians, Germans, Tatars, “Kirghiz”, etc.; this opens up opportunities for understanding the estate as an element of an independent “Eurasian civilization”. Scientific novelty is also in considering such aspects of the universality of the “estatertopos” as the international character of the Grimm farm, the global universality of the estate phenomenon in the 20th century and an appeal to folklore (German fairy tales with their archetypal depth, equally inherent to the peoples of the East and West). In connection with the latter aspect, semantic and semiotic layers have been identified, dating back to the biography and work of I.V. Goethe, V.Ya. Propp. An important part of the study is the estate as a locus of creativity in a theurgic way relevant to the 20th century, which allows a deeper understanding of the nature of socialist realism in the USSR. Finally, based on the material of Russian and German literature of the 19th–21st centuries, the development of the innovative theme of the estate and the forest has begun. Thesaurus, contextual, mythopoetic and biographical methods were used. The conclusions of the article are obtained taking into account the already existing research results on the issues covered.

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About the authors

Olga A. Bogdanova

A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: olgabogda@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7004-498X

Doct. Sci. (Philol.), Leading Researcher 

Russian Federation, 25a Povarskaya Str., Moscow, 121069

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