CC BY
11Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2 (2012 5) 255-264
УДК 316.647.8
House-spirit, Master, Pinochet:
a Patriarchal Myth
in the Late Traditional Prose
Natalya V. Kovtun*
Siberian Federal University Institute of Philology and Language Communication 82 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 16.06.2011, received in revised form 18.11.2011, accepted 17.01.2012
The article is devoted to the problem of the formation and development of a patriarchal myth (a myth about exceptional authority and power possessed by a man that allows himself to be placed in the centre of the spiritual and ideological life of society) in the late traditional prose. On the basis of the creative work of B. Ekimov called "the last Village Prose writer " in a modern critique, it is shown how the image of the Father, the Master of the house andfamily, which is itself perceived as a small church, is transformed into the image of an authoritative leader, Pinochet. The recovery from the traumatic experience of the Soviet past is a controversial process. The prejudice against the past is still in the mind and culture of the nation and emancipation means going beyond the language barrier.
Keywords: B. Ekimov, traditional prose, "Kholusha's yard", "Pinochet", patriarch.
The research is conducted in the framework of the integrative project of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences "The plot and motif complexes of Russian literature in the system of contextual and intertextual relations"
At the heart of the modern traditional prose is a medieval esthetic canon based on a folk variant of Christian ideology, which explains the synthesis of pagan and orthodox symbols. The core of a harmonious world structure is belief in God, whose successor on the Earth is the Father, the Master of the house and family regarded as a small church. The critique characterizes the works by B. Ekimov as belonging to the final period of the development of new Village Prose. The retrospective analysis of the author's texts allows judgments to be made about the specific
* Corresponding author E-mail address: nkovtun@mail.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
embodiment of a patriarchal myth in the culture of the end of the XX century.
Ekimov's breakthrough came with the story "Kholusha's yard" (1979) (in the later variant "A precious master"), which starts the period of mature creative work. The story reflects the most important concepts, ideas and images that structure the artistic world of the writer. It introduces the protagonist - a man, coming from a family of farmers, a master, cultivating and protecting his native land. The work on this land becomes a revelation, the fulfillment of duty,
and in this aspect it contrasts the senseless life of contemporaries waiting for an easy profit, rushing about in search of accidental luck. On a problematic level, the text is close to classical works of Village Prose writers that created an image of a plain toiler remaining a true guard of Rus' in spite of hardship, poverty and humiliation. The intertextual field of the story includes the stories of A. Solzhenitsyn and "Farewell to Matyora" by Rasputin. The "inner plot" of the work is based on the myth of creation. The image of a farmyard is related both to the pictures of the national past with idyllic colours, and the Ark used by God to enforce the Covenant. According to the laws of the myth, one part of the universe substitutes and testifies to the creation of the whole. The story of the concealed place (a farmyard) is told from the beginning of the yard until its downfall. The author seems to be checking the firmness of the farm world.
The family of the main character -Varfolomey Vikhliantsev (Kholusha for his fellow-villagers) is the prototype of humanity. The three brothers with meaningful names (Petr, Varfolomey, Egoriy) and their sister symbolize the initial completeness of the universe, the birth of the Russian state. We can read in the "The Tale of Bygone Years": "There were three brothers: Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv, and the sister of theirs Lybed" (Collection, 1969, 30). The surname of the character calls to mind the name of the khutor and suggests an absolute devotion to human life at this place, obligatory for an idyll - the native land, river and forest. It is Kholusha who is the last guard, the genius of the place ("We have lived here for a century", -proves the character) who has been deprived of a place similar to that of Mickail Priaslin in the story by F. Abramov, the Master of Matyora island and that of Ivan Egorov from the sunken village of Egorovka in the novel by V. Rasputin "The fire" (1985).
The description of Egorov's character's skills and appearance relates to a mythical image of a house-spirit: "Kholusha's face looked ash-grey because of the grey stubble that was shaved once a week. His quilted jacket was worn out and varnished" (Ekimov, 1984, 115), he had a customary fur cap on. A. Afanasyev describes a house-spirit as an old man with "a grey disheveled beard, tousled hair covering the face, a stern and low voice", as a master who appears in a shaggy hat (Afanasyev, 1994, 82). A favorite place of Kholusha's as well as of a house-spirit's is a traditional Russian oven, a symbol of ancestors. A mutual interchange, a connection between the owner of a farmstead, a patriarch, and a house-spirit is a general concept of Slavic mythology.
According to the logic of an idyll the life on a farmstead goes on in unity, it is included into a mythological coordinate system, into the circle "life - death - restoration" where the beginning is identical to the end and where the end is the beginning which provides the firmness of the world. In this world, man and nature, life and death are merged together. In Kholusha's mind the history of the family cannot be separated from the history of the farmyard and the creatures that inhabit it. Moreover, the character remembers the pedigree of the cow Zor'ka almost better than his own genealogy. The animal world is named, it is harmonious and beautiful: "the sheep are replete, you may lie on their backs and you won't slide down, the thick clean coat is curled - a good wave. And the goats are good" (Ekimov, 1984, 111). The master has long talks with his dog, cow and kid, and they seem to understand him at a deeper level than close friends and relatives. There is no private life: real events and sacral plots have been naturally interwoven. Referring to the motifs of the Holy history, the author reveals the meaning of what is happening on the earth: the beauty of the goat fuzz evokes an image of "the sky of the
Epiphany"; the cow is perceived in unity with images of the mother and the Virgin.
As a land gifted by God, Kholusha's farmstead is characterized by "wild fertility" as well as E. Zamyatin's Alatyr. The master fails to take stock of the animals kept on the farm, and as for the geese, hens and ducks, they "grow self-seeding. They lay eggs in the weeds, hayloft, firewood, and then appear with their hatchling" (Ekimov, 1984, 122). The motif of plenty and infinity discords with the concept of "reduced" time and "measured" land where there is no place to cut grass, which characterizes the world around the farmstead. The image of reduced (disfigured) land steps out in the story as a millenarian sign. A.F. Belousov thinks that this presentation "is a specific interpretation of the idea of the end of the world being inevitable. The end of the world will come as the result of measuring the land which forms the bases of the world" (Belousov, 1991, 32). And, in contrast, Kholusha's farmyard has everything necessary for life: fertile soil, the river, the kitchen-garden is "the biggest in the khutor", "the old garden with a meadow land. There was no equal place in the surroundings", "the house that used to be the best in Vikhliaevskoye" (Ekimov, 1984, 106). The outbuildings here as well as those in the yard of A. Solzhenitsyn's Matryona impress with their harmony; they were done in a big way, to last for centuries, but everything "was of those old-old times".
The narrator emphasizes that the most important condition of a farm for it to be secure is the farmer's daily labour, the wisdom and skills of which are inherited as God's precepts. Nothing has changed in the rhythm of life and routine of the farmstead for centuries. From generation to generation, Kholusha's family breeds the same kind of cows, treats them with herbals and deals with a huge stock. And the master intuitively comprehends the impossibility of changes that are equal to self-denial. In this
context the labour itself is the Passion: "It takes a lot to mow hay. Such sufferings..." (Ekimov, 1984, 125) - admits the hero. The mission of a herder, a guardian of the flock, is considered analogous to the mission of Christ as the Good Shepherd (John 10:11-14). During harvest-time the master looks like a suffering saint who has reached the ultimate asceticism: "During the haymaking time Kholusha, you see, didn't sleep at all. Sometimes he had a nap for an hour. And that is all. At that time he lost flesh and his face turned dark as coal" (Ekiomv, 1984, 125).
The inner space of the yard has a distinct shape, the bases of which are a circle and a system of guard-mascots. The centre of the iconographic world is a huge Russian oven as a kind of an altar, where food is cooked and where poultry hatch out - a new life is created. The farm exclusivity is proved by comparison with nature and sacred circles. After Christmas and until Epiphany there is "the sun pink-cheeked from frost" above the house. It paints "high straight poles of smoke from stoves with pink paint", even at night "the sparkling sky blazes above the cold land as a festive tsar's shawl") (Ekimov, 1984, 107). The sparkling and blazing signs on ancient icons denote exclusive glory and prove the link between earth and heaven, the fact that earthly life is included in the Divine mystery (Trubetskoy, 1993, 230).
The outer world is shown more in the background, contrasting the peculiarities of the farmstead routine. In the farmyard, the man understands the language of living creatures, whereas in the khutor the people fail to agree, and heavy drinking, envy and laziness are spread. The narration starts as well as in the "Farewell.' by V. Rasputin with the intrusion of "aliens", robbers in the world of a farming idyll (the term offered by M.M. Bakhtin): they took four young ewes and a big goat from the yard, and put the "ugly goat head" on the pole to frighten the farmer. The
events took place on Christmas Eve, a goat instead of an unblemished lamb signals the destruction of time and the invasion of atheists (Matthew 25:32). The narrator accentuates not the fact that the intruders are dangerous, but that they look and are alien to the human world. The barbarians have no faces, no language (they mumble "something illiterate") and appear only under the cover of night. According to Christian iconography the enemies move from below, from the darkness, but the house is near the heaven. The strangers' deeds form a barrier on Kholusha's path, full of toil and hardships: "his path was crossed by a stranger's footstep" (Ekimov, 1984, 107), and there is a visual effect of a cross which is crossed out. The track of sledges left by the strangers around the yard forms a tightening loop and it creates an artistic association with the image of a serpent. A reliable protection of the farmyard and the world does not exist. The ancient guard-mascots do not influence any more: "Next morning Kholusha went around his yard and marked every door and window, every chink with a cross following the ancient tradition, taking care of the house and stock" (Ekimov, 1984, 106); the people and the authorities are indifferent.
Kholusha's farmstead is the last refuge. At the level of history the disappearance of concord and harmony is connected with the period of wars and revolutions, initiated by those who are "slow-witted", as the master says, at farming labour. The energy of life and land cultivating are repudiated, the man refuses to obey God's precepts and it causes destruction and the infertility of soil. This is the key idea in "a modern pastoral "Sheppard and His Wife" by V. Astafyev (1974), "To Live and Remember" by V. Rasputin, and "The sign of Misfortune" by V. Bykov. Nothing is left in Kholusha's consciousness by the historic disturbance, and in such a way the story creates an effect of "empty" time, free of events, wasted by people aspiring to civilization:
"so many things happen during one person's life: two big wars, wandering away from home in godforsaken deserts and many other bitter things, which are smaller, the memory does not keep them" (Ekimov, 1984, 107).
Those people who talk about revolution and new deprivation are drunkards and idlers, so the very ideas of using force to change the world are discredited: the reformers are those who have broken God's precepts, have not their own fate and who are destined to knock about god-forsaken deserts. And Kholusha in contrast keeps his farm under control and authority: "under any circumstances nobody could ever bring down Kholusha" (Ekimov, 1984, 117). The bases of the protagonist's existential stability is the inner feeling of being right and awareness of his destiny to be the bread-winner, the provider for his own nation: "I do my utmost for you, for town dwellers. You don't sow and don't plough. Asphalt is everywhere. You need support. Otherwise you will die" (Ekimov, 1984, 126). While other farmers work unwillingly and for money, Kholusha's main value was the faded receipts given to him for the products he handed over to the state. He kept them hidden in the accordion "in the icon-corner of the room on the bench in a wooden box". The image of a buffoon's accordion turning out to be at the place of an icon is controversial, "the precious master" looks funny from the point of view of his fellow farmer: he is a half-witted buffoon. The narration being linked to the history does not have a single meaning any more.
The picture of a farmstead idyll is shown from different points of view: of the narrator, telling the story in the manner of a chronicle; of the main character himself, who is praising life: "My life is not bad. I live well, it is a sin to complain. I've got everything. I work hard, that's why I've got everything" (Ekimov, 1984, 122), and of representatives of the surrounding world -
the observers. For the people around the house of Kholusha, it is a stinking "animal hole" or a burial vault; "dim yellow light lit the dead room". The bright sun right above the yard discords with the darkness and the room being as cold as a vault. The trunks with family goods are the symbols of the time conserved. Looking at the farm from aside it is possible to see there the signs of decay, old age and inevitability. The life of Kholusha himself is subordinated to the routine of nature. The marked contradiction between personal, intellectual and family interests is reminiscent of "A common thing" ("Privichnoye delo") by V. Belov, where the characters as the critique says "are infinitely indifferent to their life in all the aspects which have no connection with giving birth. They are not perceptive of suffering, and they do not differentiate it in any case" (Levina, 1991, 17). Kholusha's world keeps alive and has meaning only for people following ancient rites, traditions and virtues connected with them. When the traditions do not work the man is obliged to confine himself to his outer existence and prove to himself his own identity and his own destiny.
Kholusha in his obedience to the God's precepts gets lonely; he has no family and children. His humpbacked old mother resembles an ancient priestess and is shown as being surrounded by poultry. It sounds tragic in the context of a creation myth. A bird creating the world is a constant image of ancient Russian poetics. A girl named after a bird - Princess-Swan - functions as a demiurge, creates the cosmos and links the spiritual and material parts. Women's beauty and devotion are associated with her. A vanished image of a mother is linked in the story with the motif of emasculation attributed to the image of the master with an artificial wooden limb, an analogue of a phallus. In all ancient cultures various images of a phallus have the connotation of protection from harm and the evil eye (Rankur-Lafer, 2008, 85-86). In an idyll "children are
often treated as sublimation of a sexual act and conception, in connection with the growth, life renovation, death (children and an old man, children playing on a grave etc.)" (Bakhtin, 1975, 376). The feeling of doom and of family fading leads to the decay of farmers' culture and belief: "Knolusha could've said a lot, but having caught Egor's indifferent look he understood that it was no purpose" (Ekimov, 1984, 135). The symbol of life becoming thin as an invasion of mice into the house was also used by A. Solzhenitsyn in his poetics: "The mice went freely squeaking and messing". Modern farmers living on the ruins of ancient history do not even suspect the matter that has been covered by remains. Though, in contrast to his famous predecessors, B. Ekimov actualizes the prospect of the link between the present and elements of idyllic rural culture, the prospect of history being humanized.
The cultural role of a redeemer in the story is played by a distant relative of Knolusha's, Egor. He is included both in the history of the family (one of the lost brothers in the family of Vikhliantsev's is also Egor) and the history of Christianity ideas which are associated with the image of Egor the Brave. In Ancient Rus' an angry house-spirit was propitiated "by an ancient lamp with the picture of Egor riding a horse" (Maksimov, 1994, 37) and it proves the functional similarity of the images. In the story the main components of "George's complex" are actualized. The saint was worshipped in Russia not only as the defender of faith (a basilisk fighter), but of land and sovereignty itself. Farmers idolized Egor as "god of livestock". For the South Slavs the Yuri's Day was the first day to graze their animals after winter. The main figure of the festivity was "green Yuri" - a boy crowned with twigs in blossom (Slavic mythology, 1995, 131-133). In the text there is a contradiction between the green of a farmyard and asphalt of town which symbolizes infertility.
Egor arrives at the farmstead to find the offenders who have stolen Kholusha's stock. He is a policeman: a car for him is an iron horse. The author emphasizes the rural origin of the hero, his unique diligence. Kholusha himself has no doubts that the unexpected guest is an envoy of God and "it is necessary to thank God that he has sent Egor. Kholusha thanks God that he has mercy on him and wants to assuage his old years. He feels gratitude both to God and Egor" (Ekimov, 1984, 136). It is the young man who has an idea to reunite the scattered family of farmers and to find a new house, though the idea is not developed at the level of the plot. Kholusha lives with the eyes closed, having shut himself off from history. His relatives from town are unfamiliar with farming, "they are used to another life and have no way back". The two worlds turn out to be incompatible and this explains the peculiar melancholy of the idyll built in the story. Thinking of himself as a careless pensioner who has moved to a village and is idling and chatting away sitting on a bench, the master of the farmyard cannot but laugh: "Kholusha imagined an old man with a goatee and a stick in his hand <...>. Kholusha started laughing" (Ekimov, 1984, 128).
The character is practically unable to distinguish the modern world, but at the same time mechanic repetition of ceremonies of the past does not bring any results: ancient saints are unable to save anybody. In a similar way, neither old Egoriy nor young Kolian'a, whose patron is Saint Nicholas (Nikolai the Wonderworker), manage to save the island Matyora. The day before the assault on Kholusha's yard one of she-goats gave birth to a dead lamb and this symbolizes the power of destiny; in the sky there appears a farewell sign of Saint Egoriy: "And above the earth there was a wide road covered with stars, leading to an unknown place. And someone unknown rode there striking more new fires with ringing horseshoes. And clouds and
whirls of silver dust went up and rolled, going down in the dark sky and to the earth" (Ekimov, 1984, 132). Instead of a shepherd star a "low red star" of discord rises above the house, the world loses its height rapidly, the empty sky lies heavy on the cold infertile land.
The mission of the writer is to warn; historic dates and different ideas of the personages are joined in the indivisible space of the text. The characters are described from outside, but from their own point of view, and it inserts them in the world of the writer. The artist is sure that the tragedy of discord is caused by modern people's inability and unwillingness to study the hidden essence of history. The chaos of the present creates just a curtain between the unchangeable deal and the reality. It is the author's word that makes the past closer to the present, demonstrating that the differences are inessential from the point of view of the history of spirit.
An attempt to transcend the limits of time is made on the bases of Holy history plots. For example, selfless labour of a farmer, sacrifice, which is habitual on the family land, proves the place saintly, the same way the events on Golgotha are regardless of time. At the end the "precious master" is given a gift from God, it is "a golden calf" and its pedigree comes back to the times of Eden: "It will feed all of us, my goldie...it will pour us with milk!", "I'm good at cows, I have seen a lot of them. But such cows are not mentioned even in the Covenant" (Ekimov, 1984, 144). Though, there is no one to take the testimony of the covenant besides Kholusha who has already exceeded on Earth his lifetime limits. The people around lack the "inner sight" of the Shepherd, they are unable to recognize the gift. The village does not turn into an arch, there is no place left for pilgrims. In the story by V. Rasputin "Into the same land" (1995) the idea that the place for self-realization disappears under the pressure of an illusory
futurological world of civilization is actualized in a highly effective way: there is no place to bury a dead old woman.
After Kholusha's death the yard gets empty very soon: "the windows were boarded up. The people of the khutor recollected Kholusha occasionally. More often they thought poorly of him. Less often they thought well of him" (Ekimov, 1984, 145). In this disfigured world there is no need for the pious; the fellow-villagers are irritated by Matryona's kindness (in the story by A. Solzhenitsyn), and the children of old Anna treat her as a stranger (in the story "Deadline" - "Posledniy Srok" - by V. Rasputin). The drunkard Mit'ka finds in the field the stolen Kholusha's accordion which was said to be filled with money and sets fire to the receipts which were inside the accordion. This fire looks the same as the one in the yard made by the intruders. All the testimonies of ascetic life were turned into ash - the people's memories are unreliable, but the call to repent comes from the land itself which keeps signs of the past when the Good Shepherd walked on it. The place itself can be read like a Book which holds eternal knowledge. Kholusha's accordion is a kind of Alatyr stone, and Mit'ka, a young man of loose morals, after having found the accordion has to make his choice on his own. The character is attracted by the deserted yard occupied now by swallows: "Mit'ka could not put Kholusha out of his mind. He kept thinking about him" (Ekimov, 1984, 147). The precious master kept his stock at all times; he left to his relatives a house in the village, a refuge, but a modern man is not ready to be guided by destiny which is full of work, love and kindness. Utopian socialists bequeathed "the life with dances" (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin) which turned into devastation, destruction of the "soil" itself (Kovtun, 2011, 1045-1057). Having just studied the covenant without being practically trained to
"create", to cultivate the land which was gifted, a person is part of a history which slides every time into evil eternity.
We think several icon texts demonstrate the grand total of an idyllic person's fate, when he is thrown out from a house-temple to the crossroads of history. In later works of V. Rasputin there is shown a new type of hero, a player or trickster, who has to assimilate the dimension of civilization. The prospect of the image is in its contiguity with the world of chaos. The mission of a trickster is inseparably linked with the cultural hero-redeemer who is to come. Without this prospect his course of life is deeply tragic. While "departure" or trial is the destiny of a self-centered male who takes care of his own social importance, the heroic deed of overcoming or "returning" is linked by the author to the images of girl-warriors, whose will, fortitude and courage substitute unfortunate experience of men.
B. Ekimov offers a new version of "the paradise of defense in wooden houses" in the novel "Pinochet" (1999), for which he is awarded with Solzhenitsyn prize. The author creates a text in a tough realistic manner where the romantic symbolism characteristic of his earlier stories has been minimized. The basic pathos of the work links it with the most important idea of A. Solzhenitsyn about "taking care of people", who are robbed and humiliated by the authorities and the history itself. A hero-redeemer is a new chairman of the kolkhoz. He has an absolutely non-heroic surname - Korityn and an expressive nickname Pinochet. The plot is built on the idea of a person inspecting his land (the land of kolkhoz), protecting it and making it flourish. The same idea is touched upon in the story "Matryona's yard", and it is the core one in the "Farewell." by V. Rasputin. The ancient ritual in the text of B. Ekimov has an absolutely realistic justification - the chairman who is on patrol to
protect the people and stock from the thieves is shown only while he is on his way.
The farmers in the kolkhoz are weak and indecisive ("it's a kindergarten, they are kids"), they are used to stealing and need a master, a father ("Without a master it will end soon") and Korityn is destined for this role. With a master there will be "a lost paradise", communism, restored: "We lived well with him. We knew no grief. The kolkhoz built the house. The nursery school was free of charge, there was free food at school. It's true, it was communism" (Ekimov, 1999, 14). The protagonist though, being a successful official, takes up the destroyed kolkhoz after his father. He follows the covenant, and is ready to suffer as Christ, and to be a social outcast. The friends and relatives think him to be a warrior, a messenger. An old agriculturist Petrovich wants to know: "Father has sent you, hasn't he? ...Ilya Muromets.Go fast and save." (Ekimov, 1999, 23). The opponents think him to be a dictator or a lunatic. He will be called a lunatic by old women (who are traditional keepers of idyllic bounds) whose images are strengthened by symbols of decay: "The wrinkled, toothless and ugly face of the old woman was distorted with drunkenness and grievance" (Ekimov, 1999, 6). The new master opposes not only the past and the present with its cult of democracy, but the whole logic of history; he restores the kolkhoz at any price. Thus in the text the ideas rejected by the time are actualized.
The chosen space (the last ark) is organized according to the classical features of dystopia: he gets rid of profit-seeking Chechens, maintains strong discipline, there are watchmen on the roads, and barbed wire appears around the barn and cowshed. Even children inform against offenders (it was recommended by Campanella). The world around is unpredictable, chaotic and is associated with Sodom, where everything alive dies. The symbol of this territory is a dump of
dead animals, on top of which there are "big, grey rats diving inside the eaten through animals of the stock" (Ekimov, 1999, 42). The chairman's guide and assistant is a small boy looking both like a guardian angel (he looks like a bird, his shoulders, collar-bones, elbows - all bones are sharp, birdlike. And he moves quickly like a bird) and a Boy Scout (young timurovetz). Both the name of the child - Ivan - and his occupation - a shepherd -are symbolic, he is related to the family of the chairman by blood - the boy is an adopted brother of the protagonist.
Korityn himself does not mind being called a communist; he has learned ideas of mutual assistance and social justice since the times of The Young Communist League: "A timurovetz. In order to help old people. To help those pupils who are behind and disgrace the rest of the class. He would do it. You can't forget it" (Ekimov, 1999, 39). The author treats the logic of the main character as inevitable. Once again the logic of the chief inquisitor disputes the mercy of Christ: a "sinful" kolkhoz farmer should be treated "sternly, otherwise everything will go to rack and ruin!" The writer witnesses that the experience of the soviet time cannot be abolished, going out of its limits means going out of the limits of culture and language themselves. I. Bachmann writes that prejudice against the past is preserved in the language "as disgraceful stains even when the prejudice vanishes" (Bachmann, 1976, 59).
Being an educated person, delicate within his soul, "smiling and kind", Korityn has to become a dictator for the people to trust and understand him, to believe that the Exodus is possible. The role of a dictator makes him close to the mission of a master, a redeemer. Moreover the author uses the plot to emphasize that the choice made by the character is tragic and inevitable. The image of Golgotha is seen behind it, but without a possibility to resurrect. The text begins with the scene when the chairman meets his sister and
ends with her prediction about the approaching downfall: "Mum died young, of heart. My brother takes after her both in appearance and character. He is similar to her. God willing." (Ekimov, 1999, 43). Thus, in the novel which summarizes
the results of a search done by a whole generation of artists, the dimension of a farm idyll is restricted by the coordinates of dystopian society, a repressive and controlled state. This is the price of paradise on earth.
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Домовой, Хозяин, Пиночет: патриархальный миф в поздней традиционалистской прозе
Н.В. Ковтун
Сибирский федеральный университет Институт филологии и языковой коммуникации Россия 660041, Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 82
Статья посвящена проблеме становления и развития патриархального мифа (мифа об исключительном авторитете и силе, которыми обладает мужчина, и которые позволяют ему стать в центр духовной, идеологической жизни общества) в поздней традиционной прозе. На материале творчества Б. Екимова, названного в современной критике "последним деревенщиком", показан процесс трансформации образа Отца, Хозяина дома как малой церкви в образ руководителя авторитарного типа, Пиночета. Изживание травматического опыта советского прошлого - процесс неоднозначный, предрассудки минувшего остаются в сознании, культуре нации, когда освобождение означает выход за грань самого языка.
Ключевые слова: Б.Екимов, традиционная проза, "Холюшино подворье", "Пиночет", патриарх.
Работа выполнена в рамках интеграционного проекта СО РАН "Литература и история: сферы взаимодействия и типы повествования".
