«Я женщина — твердый воин…»: образ воительницы в лирике А. А. Барковой

Abstract

This paper deals with the figure of a female warrior in the lyric of Anna Barkova. The author analyzes constant features and the evolution of this image, demonstrates its peculiarities and reveals Barkova’s sources. It also involves describing the main “power lines” of Barkova’s creative reception of this archetypal image. First, it is the motif of sacrifice, of renouncing the feminine gender role (represented not as externally imposed, but as a part of the very essence of the lyrical heroine) in the name of a higher calling; second, the motif of love-hate, love-enmity expressed through the topos of duel with the heroine’s beloved; third, the motifs of overflowing strength, prowess, brigandism. While in 1921–1922 the image of a female warrior appears in Barkova`s works as an ideal worth of any sacrifices, later it becomes ambivalent emphasizing its destructive and self-destructive intentions. Still, even in the late gulag and post-gulag lyric the implicit self-identification of the lyrical “I” with this figure does occur — due to the deepest, unaffected by any external circumstances personality traits which are also reflected in the poet’s letters and documents.