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Abstract:

The article attempts to interpret the front-line writer Evgeny I. Nosov’s story “Usvyatsky Helmet-Bearers” (1977) from a mythological position. The author is close in his works to both village writers and representatives of lieutenant prose. This allows him to combine in the story the mythological images of the Russian people and native land with the motif of confrontation with an external enemy and suggestively depict this confrontation itself without plot actualization, placing it in the sphere of the dichotomy of good and evil, the confrontation between Truth and Falsehood. For this reason, the relatively small story takes on an impressive folklore-epic scale and directly addresses the categories of national mentality. Mythologism in “Usvyatsky Helmet-Bearers” manifests itself on several levels. Firstly, on the chronotopic level. The described setting contains some features of a generalized, ahistorical topos and is related to the mythopoetic model of the world, which implies the presence of a sacred center and its guardians. Secondly, at the character level. The main characters, in accordance with their names, embody military archetypes and thus are included in the Aleksei F. Losev’s concept of myth. Thirdly, at the level of typological convergence and intertextual intersections. The work is oriented towards the epic layer of Russian literature, towards “The Lay of the Warfare Waged by Igor” and towards the war stories of Ancient Rus. Fourthly, at the stylistic level, which demonstrates a clear focus on the oral word and proximity to the tale type of narration. These features give Nosov’s story a life-affirming pathos and express the idea of the immortality of the “people’s body”. They also point to the timeless relevance of the heroes’ strategy of consciously going beyond the boundaries of non-existence.

Keywords: Evgeny I. Nosov, village prose, lieutenant prose, mythopoetic model of the world, rite of passage, magical name, military succession, Old Russian literature.