Article

Name: “Hell would take them, these gifts!”: sources of the semantics of a false gift in the literary creativity of V. M. Shukshin

Authors: D. V. Maryin

Altai State University, Barnaul, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper studies the semantics sources of the motif of false in literary works of V. M. Shukshin and his non-fiction texts – donation inscriptions. Donation inscriptions are considered as material for revealing the understanding of the gift by Shukshin, i. e. as the psychoiographical analysis data, which may be useful for interpreting the motif of the gift in the writer’s work. The process of giving and a gift in the works of Shukshin acquire original symbolism, steadily repeated in a number of works. Several donation inscriptions by V. M. Shukshin left on books (his and other writers’) and photographs contain the motif of a false gift. This motif is often emphasized in the Shukshin’s autographs by indicating the purpose of the gift inscription or by using the imperative. In the prose of V. M. Shukshin, a gift is very often an imaginary, false, empty gift. However, in a number of stories (“Small сapron Christmas tree,” “Brother-in-law Sergey Sergeevich,” “Exam”), the gift motif acquires infernal features. The formation of such a perception of giving and a gift may be due to the circumstances of Shukshin’s personal life, his psychological characteristics, and facts of his biography. The analysis leads to the conclusion that in the Shukshin’s artistic world, a gift is very often understood as a false, imaginary gift, a substitute for a real gift, which is also an attribute of a demonic, evil spirit.

Keywords: Russian literature of the 20th century, life and work of V. M. Shukshin, fiction, dedicatory inscriptions, motifs and symbols of a gift

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