National character in the allegorical prose of M. Tarkovsky and A. Bushkovsky

Abstract

This article analyzes the Russian national character as the main theme in the works of M. Tarkovsky and A. Bushkovsky. The criteria for selecting the research material is the date of publication (2019) and the presence of an allegorical plot, which depicts the traditionalism, spirituality, controversy, and at the same time holism, sense of humor, and depth of national character. The author views national character as the foundation of artistic world in the allegorical prose; as well as gives characteristics to the key motifs, such as faith, labor, challenges, antagonism of the alien, unfamiliar to a Russian person. The article employs the systemic-holistic approach towards revealing the typological features of the modern traditionalist prose by M. Tarkovsky and A. Bushkovsky. The research is based on the comparativism, which allows determining the common trends and uniqueness of both authors. The article identifies the invariant constructions and images (portrait, landscape, detail, language). The elements of biographical method are used for correlating the hero with personal experience and worldview of the author. The structural-semantic method allows focusing on the aesthetic object, revealing the semantic meaning of methods used by the writers to create the image. Hermeneutics characterizes the allegory and symbol as fundamental means of expressing the authorial intentions, which reflect the ideological and aesthetic changes in the literary system. This article is first to analyze the literary texts of modern authors from the perspective of ethnopoetics.