Article

Name: LONG STORY «VIY» BY N. V. GOGOL IN THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF 20TH CENTURY: MOTIVE OF DEVIL’S INTRUSION IN THE PLAY «PANNOCHKA» BY N. N. SADUR AND IN THE STORY «HOSPITAL» BY M. YU. ELIZAROV

Authors: O. A. Kolmakova, Ch. Van

Buryat State University, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract: Classical literature of the 19th and the 20th centuries is perceived in two ways in contemporary Russian literature. First, it is seen in the aspect of ironic game intertextual postmodern poetics. Second, it is understood as a part of the «tradition-novelty» issue. Based upon these principles, N. Sadur’s play «Pannochka» and M. Elizarov’s short story «Hospital» make use of Gogol’s motifs from the long story «Viy» to build their plots. Analyzing the motif of devil’s intrusion in the texts of Sadur and Elizarov gives us grounds to state that each author has his/her own idiosyncratic literary style as well as helps to define the key tendencies of the literary process in the1990-s. In N. Sadur’s play, the main Gogol’s character is absent. The demonic element is embodied here by the image of Pannochka, who emphasizes the author's concept of a person as of a container of infernal and divine at the same time. N. Sadur, not using the image of Viy in the play, naturally changes the emphasis of Gogol’s plot. It was important for Gogol to portray the person’s impotence in front of the mystically enigmatic forces of evil, but Sadur, on the other hand, makes Homa Brut the Person who is capable of resisting the infernal world and defeating it spiritually. In the short story of M. Elizarov, «Viy», on the contrary, is the central character. He is personified by the image of the sadistic soldier Prishchepin, whose appearance in a military hospital turns into a «small» apocalypse. «Viy» Prishchepin turns the hospital, the «topos» of Christian salvation and mercy, into hell. Apart from the traditional symbolism of the demonic motive as extremely ugly, contemporary Russian authors also realize the ambivalent content of this motif, which is inherent in N. Gogol’s poetics. The ambivalence of Pannochka image in N. Sadur’s play is created by the motif of metamorphosis: first, Pannochka turns into an old disgusting witch, and then she turns into a child who wants to be pitied. The image of Elizarov’s Prishchepin is also ambivalent. Despite a negative attitude towards the sadistic soldier, the narrator, as if against his will, is delighted by Prishchepin’s ability to expose falsity. While the traditional, tragically absurd semantics of the demonic element in N. Sadur’s and M. Elizarov’s works express the global sociocultural crisis at the turn of the 21st century, the ambivalent content of the demonic motif means that the writers belong to the postmodernist literary aesthetics with its relativity of values.

Keywords: modern russian literature, reception of n. v. gogol’s works, motive of devil’s intrusion, n. sadur, «pannochka», m. elizarov, «hospital»

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