The article belongs to a series of publications presenting the results of the author’s research of the XX–XXI centuries’ Russian and foreign fantasy from the viewpoint of the Afterlife Universe artistic image embodiment as a special locus of human being (soul) postmortem existence. The article highlights charac- teristic features and functions of one of the basic leitmotifs in the artistic structure of the narrative of the afterlife – the motif of memory. It has been revealed that the given leitmotif is interpreted by writers in several semantic aspects and includes a number of subordinate motives: “self-memory” as the basis of a person’s posthumous self-identification, the memory of close family members and years past, the memory of the alive about the dead, and, finally, the memory of the humanity as a whole about its own history. Based on the results of the analysis, one can draw certain conclusions on the general meaning of the leitmotif: memory is a unique trace in history left by a person, it is also a great debt owed by the living to the dead, and it is the total collective experience that shapes humanity. Besides, in a number of texts, it is a steady basis of the Afterlife Universe existence.
THE MOTIF OF MEMORY IN THE FANTASY NARRATIVE OF THE AFTERLIFE: THE PECULIARITIES OF ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION
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- 0000-0001-9457-8556
- 0000-0001-9457-8556
- AIC-8131-2022
- 0000-0001-9457-8556
- 0000-0001-9457-8556
Елена Н. Ковтун
- [email protected]
- Институт славяноведения Российской академии наук, г. Москва
- Руска Федерация
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ЕЛЕНА КОВТУН – доктор филологических наук, профессор, ведущий научный сотрудник, заведующий Отделом истории славянских литератур Института сла- вяноведения РАН, заведующий кафедрой славистики и центральноевропейских исследований Российского государственного гуманитарного университета. Окончила славянское отделение филологического факультета МГУ имени М.В. Ломо- носова (1987), аспирантуру (1990) и докторантуру (1999) по кафедре славянской филологии. На той же кафедре в 1991–2021 гг. читала курсы лекций по истории и культуре Чехии, истории чешской литературы, истории русской и зарубежной фантастики. Сфера научных интересов – чешская и другие славянские литературы, современная российская, зарубежная славянская и западная фантастика, теория и история фантастики и художественного вымысла. Автор более ста пятидесяти научных публикаций, в том числе монографий «Карел Чапек и социальная фантастика ХХ столетия» (1998), «Поэтика необычайного: Художественные миры фантастики, волшебной сказки, утопии, притчи и мифа» (1999), «Художест- венный вымысел в литературе ХХ века» (2008); «Интертекст Мира Посмертия в фантастике XX–XXI вв.» (2024).
Abstract:The article belongs to a series of publications presenting the results of the author’s research of the XX–XXI centuries’ Russian and foreign fantasy from the viewpoint of the Afterlife Universe artistic image embodiment as a special locus of human being (soul) postmortem existence. The article highlights charac- teristic features and functions of one of the basic leitmotifs in the artistic structure of the narrative of the afterlife – the motif of memory. It has been revealed that the given leitmotif is interpreted by writers in several semantic aspects and includes a number of subordinate motives: “self-memory” as the basis of a person’s posthumous self-identification, the memory of close family members and years past, the memory of the alive about the dead, and, finally, the memory of the humanity as a whole about its own history. Based on the results of the analysis, one can draw certain conclusions on the general meaning of the leitmotif: memory is a unique trace in history left by a person, it is also a great debt owed by the living to the dead, and it is the total collective experience that shapes humanity. Besides, in a number of texts, it is a steady basis of the Afterlife Universe existence.
Subject: RUSSIAN-WESTERN PERSPECTIVESKeywords: загробное существование, Мир Посмертия, трансформация личности после смерти, российская и зарубежная фантастика XX–XXI вв.References
KOVTUN, E. N. “Intertekst Mira Posmertiya” v fantastike XX–XXI vv.: funktsional’nost’ hudozhestvennoy modeli. – Studia Litterarum. 2022. Т. 7, № 4. S. 34–53.
KOVTUN, E. N. Poetika neobychaynogo: Hudozhestvennye miry fantastiki, volshebnoj skazki, utopii, pritchi i mifa (Na materiale evropeyskoy literatury pervoy poloviny XX veka). Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1999.
KOVTUN, E. N. Hudozhestvennyy vymysel v literature XX veka. Moskva: Vysshaya shkola, 2008.
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