The Image of the Russian Revolution as the Embodiment of the Author's Understanding of History in "The Nomadism to Death" by Vladimir Maksimov

Abstract

The study features the image of the revolution in the novel by V. Maksimov "The Nomadism to Death". The research employed the cultural-historical and mythopoetic methods, as well as the method of motivational analysis. Since the novel has a complex multistage structure, the image of the revolution is considered according to the levels of the text: 1. The real layer of time, featuring the generation of fathers, who participated in the revolution and civil war. For them, revolution is significant: this is what they lived, killed and died for. The image of revolution evokes respect and worship, as well as regret about its incomplete. On this level, the revolution is closely connected with the time of the Civil War, which became its continuation. 2. The metatext level (the level of the explicit author-narrator Mikhail Barmin) unites the metatextual construction of the novel (which includes the present, Barmin’s past and "a novel inside the novel" about the time of the revolution and the civil war) and fits into the artistic conception of the writer's time: Maksimov depicts the time as a deadly chaotic circle, guiding the destinies of his characters and the land that repeats its history again and again, and in the whole of humanity as a whole. 3. Author's point of view (implicit author) – the revolution appears in the form of chthonic creatures, monsters devouring their children, demanding blood sacrifices and human lives.