Letter As A Communication Genre: Correspondence Of M. Gorky In Soviet Time

Abstract

The Gorky Epistolary is a life chronicle viewed at the levels of biography facts, the literature process history in Russia and abroad, and the country fate at the turn of the century and statehood. The eventfulness of a letter as a communication genre confirms this. The communicative ability of Gorky manifested itself as a linking element between a human and the society. The analysis of Gorky’s correspondence revealed the following characteristics in the field of communication: “a middle man”, “arch”, “buffer”. At each stage of the literary process these modified characteristics confirmed the role of the writer as a world communication figure. In the article the author suggests an analysis of theoretical hypothesis about the specifics of Gorky’s letters which are the unique combination of documentary and art within a single text. The analytical process is connected with the purpose of the article: the research of letters in the context of the epistolary development as a communicative genre. This allowed isolating the classification of genre subtypes of letters, including three groups. These three groups include a letter-request, a letter of a reconstructed request, a publicist letter. While analyzing texts, the biographical method, the comparative – historical method, and the method of immanent poetic were used, what made it possible to identify these conditional groups. A general view of the problem of the Soviet epistolary allowed asserting that the writing genre began modifying, turning from the personal property of an addressee into the “link” of a communicative chain in the society.