Специфика синтеза фольклорного и православного кода в романе Ю. Вознесенской «Звезда Чернобыль»

Abstract

Y. Voznesenskaya’s novel “The Star Chernobyl” is analyzed through the prism of the folklore code. The novel, built as a synthesis of fiction and non-fiction and telling about the first weeks after the Chernobyl disaster, connects the biblical context and the story of a small family, unfolding in real historical conditions according to the scheme of a fairy tale narrative. We establish that the epigraph to the novel does not just “rhyme” with the plot deployment, but, firstly, sets the key theme of the narrative (Chernobyl disaster), and secondly, it makes it possible to discover the commonality of the ongoing processes in biblical times and in modern times, forcing the reader invariably correlate what is happening in the present and in the distant past at each new round of phantasmagoric action. It expands the theme of novel to a global, universal scale, immerses it in the context of biblical imagery (Chernobyl accident as the beginning of the Apocalypse, a universal catastrophe) and acquires the functions of a contextual link that connects not just epochs, but modernity with eternity, everyday life with existence. The Orthodox context of novel is embodied in the motifs of forgiveness, catholicity, sacrificial love, as well as in the figurative system, where two types of righteous hero are presented: if the main character is a “doubted righteous man” who follows the faith through trials, personal disappointments and losses, then her Sister Anna is comparable to righteous wanderers (she is not ideal, she has worldly vices, but she devoutly believes in God, does not deviate from her own convictions, and in the finale is ready for a truly sacrificial act, refusing personal happiness for the sake of saving orphans).