Structural semantic features dominant in the poetics of Yu.V. Bondarev’s works about the Great Patriotic War (to the 100th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

The article aims to show the evolution of the significant structural semantic features dominant in the poetics of Yu.V. Bondarev’s works about the Great Patriotic War. The principal research methods are structural semantic and comparative-contrastive analysis. To achieve the goal, the study consistently reveals the specific features of the poetics of the writer’s early novellas "The Battalions Request Fire" and "The Last Shot", as well as the novel "The Hot Snow". Based on the comparison of the obtained results, the paper concludes that the poetics of the writer’s works about the Great Patriotic War evolved in the course of time. Moreover, specific forms of such changes are indicated. The dominant features of Yu.V. Bondarev’s poetics are the protagonist’s specific confessional discourse, the chronotope locality, the leitmotif opposition between the images of lyrical and tragic planes, the expressiveness of the eclectic detail, cinematographicity, sensory language, the semantic significance of the finales. These features are manifested in the writer’s early works about the Great Patriotic War, as well as in his novel "The Hot Snow". The novellas "The Battalions Request Fire" and "The Last Shots" are considered within the framework of the leading genre model of "lieutenant prose", i. e. the genre of the frontline lyric novella. "The Hot Snow" is studied as a lyric-epic novel about the Great Patriotic War. The novel retains some features of the frontline lyrical novella, while others are taken to a new level. In "The Hot Snow" novel, the confessional discourse is enhanced with a rational-analytical component; the chronotope of the work, while retaining its locality, acquires the specificity of a documentary one. Details (object, portrait, landscape, interior, psychological) are actively used, but at the same time they are generalised to a symbolic level. Yu.V. Bondarev’s cinematographic vision is enriched with new forms and techniques; the linguo-sensory system becomes intricate and includes components previously not used by the writer. The novel finale is not abstract, but conceptual. These dominant structural semantic features of the poetics of Yu. V. Bondarev’s works make it possible to determine the genesis of his novelistic creativity and conclude that the writer’s artistic thinking evolved.