Национальная самоидентификация героя-эмигранта в эмигрантской прозе Г. Иванова и Г. Миллера. Статья первая: утрата исконного национального мира и любви

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The research material is Tropic of Cancer, a 1934 novel by the American novelist Henry Miller, and “Disintegration of the Atom”, a 1938 story by the Russian poet Georgy Ivanov. The aim of the article is to compare the plot situations of self-identification of emigrant heroes in terms of the manifestation of their national identity in order to understand how the problem of national selfidentification of a person of the modern era in exile is exacerbated. The first article draws attention to the stories of the central characters, to the difference in their way of life in emigration, their world relations, their love conflicts. The heroes are united by the formation of their national and personal identity in their native world and the identity crisis in a foreign environment (although it is not at the center of the narration). According to Miller, a person’s national identity is determined primarily by a biological factor (“blood”). An emigrant (more broadly, a modern person with a blurred national identity) is a voluntary exile who does not live the life offered by the community (clan, nation), but independently chooses a motherland, looking for one’s own value space. However, the change of national identity, according to Miller, is impossible. In the plot of the central character’s self-identification, his national identity is tested: he is approaching the discovery of his national (American) self-consciousness, although he remains in Paris. According to Ivanov, the national identity of a person, on the contrary, is associated with the native soil (territory) and culture, and separation from the soil creates a state of total disconnection from any matter. “Atom” is an emigrant who has broken away from the whole (Russia), retaining his national identity (although it is eroded in emigration), but doomed to a spiritual decay outside his homeland, in any foreign environment. The dominant traits of Americans that Miller’s hero rejects in himself and in others are optimism and pragmatism, the trait of a true American (himself) is vitality. The dominant features of the Russian national character are idealism and striving for the beyond (according to Ivanov and his hero, “metaphysical masturbation”). The love line is significant in the national self-identification of the heroes of Miller and Ivanov, since the nostalgic experiences of the heroes come down to the loss of their beloved, symbolizing the lost native world. In both works, the heroes’ attempts to overcome the memory of their beloved are given, both heroes unsuccessfully try to compensate for the unrequited feeling in relations with reduced substitutes for the beloved (mistress, prostitute). The destruction of the myth about a woman brings Miller’s hero closer to liberation, but Ivanov’s hero cannot exist without love and makes an existential choice of death.