«That Limit of Depth…»: Rhythm and Meaning in the Poem «I Was Killed near Rzhev» («Ya Ubit podo Rzhevom») (To the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of A. T. Tvardovsky)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis and interpretation of A. Tvardovsky’s poem «I Was Killed Near Rzhev» («Ya Ubit podo Rzhevom») in the unity of its form and content. The analysis was carried out using the methods of prosody and text philological analysis, techniques of decoding stylistics, text reading «under the linguistic microscope», commentary, rhetorical analysis. The authors come to the conclusion that the imagery stylistic system of the poem is based on the affective contradiction – a collision of despair connected with an atheistic understanding of death as a total destruction of an individual and craving for faith. Polyphony and polysemantics of the poem’s text, a repeated change of communicative and rhythmic registers against the background of the author’s image integrity personified in the poem are viewed upon as iconic signs transmitting the idea of conciliarism of the Russian people as an integrated-divided unity.