Abstract

The features of modeling artistic space in Sofia Prokofieva’s fairy tale “Kingdom of Seven Lakes” (2004) are interpreted. The interaction of parallel worlds – real and fairytale – takes place in a fairy tale through dynamic metamorphoses of space: an uninhabited house turns out to be a portal to a magical land, a mysterious staircase is a path to an unknown world. In “Kingdom of Seven Lakes”, one of the ways to model space is the complete disappearance of real coordinates and the miraculous appearance of a new world from “nowhere”. Spatial characteristics and metamorphoses of the fairy tale space, the mythologeme of the ladder and the key, the opposition of horizontal – vertical, disappearance – appearance, openness – isolation, infinity – limitation, the coordinates of the demonic and heavenly worlds in Prokofiev’s work are subject to the movement of ethical thought. The downward movement, on the one hand, carries the semantics of growing danger, fear, doom, approaching death, on the other hand, it marks a magical transition into a fairy tale and back into the real world. The vertical – horizontal dialectics represents the motive of the main character’s journey in his movement towards an unknown goal. The adventures of the protagonist in the fairy tale universe with its spatial dynamics and the growing tension of struggle and movement determine Alyoshka’s actions, which require mercy, patience and courage from him and ultimately led to the salvation of the wonderful kingdom. His journey through the fabulous lakes symbolizes certain stages of the character’s spiritual path. The space of Evidentis Castle has a special status in the fairy tale. In the work there is an implicit opposition of heaven and hell, which has spatial characteristics. The sulfur lake, both in its name and in appearance (lack of air and in general real space in it, all-burning fire) marks a hellish place, while the revived royal castle of Evidentis appears as an image of universal happiness, love and unceasing fun, an eternal feast in divine bosom. Modeling of multidimensional and ambivalent space has a great discursive significance in the “Kingdom of Seven Lakes” and makes it possible to realize in the fairy tale the most important motif of the path – the path of growing up, knowing the world and self-knowledge of the young character, finding the higher meanings of being.

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