The ideological world of the trilogy of the Mari writer N. Lekain «Iron Will», «In the Fire of the Great War», «Land of the Ancestors»

Abstract

An analysis of the themes, issues, ideas and pathos of the trilogy of the Mari writer Nikandr Lekain is the basis of this article. The novels «Iron Will» and «Land of Ancestors» depict the process of social and national revival of the previously oppressed Mari people. The depiction of the events of the beginning of the 20th century (Stolypin’s agrarian reform, the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Civil War, the NEP) takes place through the prism of the author’s worldview. The writer shows the conditions under which the process of formation of Soviet regime, the implementation of a new economic policy, the growth and formation of a new progressive Man, and the overcoming of the vestiges of the past in the minds of the Mari people took place. The novel «In the Fire of the Great War» by the former front-line soldier reveals the patriotism and heroism of the multinational Soviet people, manifested in the fight against the fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War. This aspect is considered for the first time in Mari literary studies. The structural-semantic research method makes it possible to evaluate both the ideological world, the author’s worldview, and its individual poetic elements. Through the prism of the writer’s attention, the image of a resisting and fighting Soviet soldier is comprehensively depicted; as well as the heroic actions of the Yevsey’s, Ivan Zuev’s guerrilla warrior detachments in the enemy’s rear; the awful life under occupation of the Sosnovka’s village inhabitants; the cruelty of the German invaders; the spiritual squalor of the traitors. N. Lekain’s trilogy epically reveals the historical events of the late 19th – mid-20th centuries.