Man vs time: the features of сhrono-fiction in S. Krzhizhanovsky's story "Memories of the Future"

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to clarify the features of сhrono-fiction in S. Krzhizhanovsky 's story "Memories of the Future". An understanding of the author's concept and plot function of time travel, a systematic description of different levels of poetics of the story (type of hero, plot-composition structure, space-time structure, narrative organization) are offered. The relevance of the study is determined by the interest of modern literary studies in the problems of science fiction and сhrono-fiction as its variety, as well as the insufficient study of S. Krzhizhanovskyi 's work in this aspect. The plot of the story is subordinated to the idea of time travel and its implementation. The work presents multidimensional time and changing space, but the description of the future as a specific historical epoch does not receive a detailed social and everyday characteristic. The most important thing is the process of movement in time, its experience by the hero and the spiritual evolution of the characters. The storyteller's focus is on the formation of an idea in the hero's mind and its transformation under the influence of the journey. Time becomes a theme, a problem, a hero, a participant in the conflict and the main component of the artistic structure of the story. Time can be attributed to the system of characters of the work, since it is with him that the inventor Sterer, who corresponds to the archetype of a cultural hero, enters into a dispute and a duel. As the plot develops, the relationship between the main character and the surrounding reality, historical time, changes. This is the essence of the plot of formation, to which the hero-inventor and a secondary character - his biographer Stynskyi - are related. Sterer 's transformation is sudden, Stynsky 's transformation is gradual, which ensures the openness of the finale. Chrono-fiction Krzhizhanovsky 's work differs from other authors' сhrono-fiction in that the writer is not interested in either the world of the past or the world of the future. He is interested in the development of the idea within the hero, and the hero within the idea, the struggle with time and its consequences for man. Krzhizhanovsky 's story does not reveal the content of Sterer 's dystopia, which plagued its author. The very fact of its creation as a result of the hero's formation is important.