THE NARRATIVE IN T. KESKISARJA’S BOOK “THE WAR OF THE HATS”

Abstract

The research is carried out within the framework of a narratological analysis, the material for which was T. Keskisarja’s military historical monograph “The War of the Hats.” Keskisarja’s work is a historical narrative with literary features. The narrative strategies implemented in the text are considered.The starting point of the research was the juxtaposition of historical and literary narratives, scientific and artistic styles. Keskisarja’s book is dedicated to the Russian-Swedish war of 1741–1743 (known as the War of the Hats), which Sweden began in the hope of regaining the territories lost during the Northern War (1700–1721).The scenes of the past are presented mainly through the decisions of military and civil courts, clergy records, various documents (letters, orders, petitions), historical maps. Keskisarja uses interpretation as the main tool for analyzing archival materials, which makes it possible to reason about human experience.The method used by Keskisarja to present archival data to the 21st-century reader through the prism of a novel with the features of a psychological analysis fully meets the needs of the present time. The fascinating manner of narration, combined with the historian’s professionalism gives the reader a completely adequate idea of the political situation in Europe and the tragic events of the 18th century.Keskisarja uses the expressive means of fiction, inserts a fictional, independent, third-party observer into the historical narrative — a “sentient being” who evaluates events and conducts a dialogue with the reader. Such features of the text under study as dialogicality, anthropocentricity, emotionality, and hybridity are noted. The details of the fates of real people give the narrative volume and expressiveness. The author of the monograph does not “invent” certain events of the described reality — he conjectures and interprets them, trying to discover their meaning, their connection with the past and the future.