History and myth in Leonid Yuzefovich’s novel “Philhelle”

Abstract

The article analyzes L. Yuzefovich’s novel “Philhellene” from the point of view of its historical and mythological (mythopoetic) codes’ functions. The purpose of the work is to identify historical and mythological encodings in the novel, using descriptive and mythopoetic research methods. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the type of hero, the character system, as well as the identification of the novel chronotope and the justification of its genre characteristics. We argue that L. Yuzefovich’s novel is not a historical novel in the generally accepted sense. Although “Philhellene” has the necessary markers of the historical novel genre, L. Yuzefovich, through the category that we call “duality”, rises to the level of the symbolic generalization characteristic of myth. In his authorial myth, history, mythologized history, mythology, epic and legend coexist in one space, determining the originality of the novel world of “Philhellene”. We analyze the image of the main character, Mostsepanov who reveals a clear similarity with the image of the epic hero. In his wanderings, a mythopoetic chronotope is embodied through the prism of L. Yuzefovich’s authorial myth. The article states that L. Yuzefovich sees Greece’s path to prosperity through the merging of two related national identities – Russian and Greek – so Mostsepanov becomes the embodiment of this synthesis. As a result of the above statements, “Philhellene” can be characterized as a historical-mythological novel with a predominance of the mythological code.