Physical abnormality as a measure of natural and social order in the stories of the nenets writer A. P. Nerkagi: to the specificity of ethno-patience

Abstract

This article systematically describes the phenomenon of deviation from the physical norm in four stories by the Russian-speaking Nenets prose writer Anna Nerkagi. The authors consider the image subject from the following positions in this work: 1) as an element of ontological thinking by an outstanding representative of the indigenous peoples of Russia; 2) as a tool for testing and restoring the norm/order; 3) as a mechanism associated with the reliance of the Nenets literature on the syncretic and traditionalist stages of the literary development. In this article, the authors identify problem-thematic analogues of the abnormality phenomenon in the regional context, which act as indirect and direct impulses in relation to Nerkagi’s prose or as close comparative material for it. The systematic nature of the description shows the difference in the options for depicting ethno-tolerance in the national cultures of Russia and, on this basis, reflects their specificity in line of the humanities concepts. This article has been written as part of the Year of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia and continues a comprehensive study of A. Nerkagi’s prose, a multiple nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. This study was started with a collective monograph about her and a three-volume edition of her prose from the 1970s-2010s with scientific comments. Anna Nerkaghi, initiated into the mysteries of her people’s existence of her people and speaking on their behalf, uses the course of fictional events to fix the self-restoration of the main character’s existential substance as a natural-pagan principle, which constitutes the fate of the character and ensures that they are equal to their fate and place in the ethnic group.