About the author:
Irina B. Pavlova, DSc in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
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Abstract:
The content of the article is connected with the motive of aquatic element and water substance in the epic novel, which performs world-organizing, psychological, socio-ethical, plot-forming functions. The ambivalent image of waters is rooted in world and Russian cultural traditions, in folklore and mythology. In the epic novel, the historical process, the movement of human masses is likened to flow. Rivers / lakes that need to cross, protrude between life and death, salvation and death. Moving on water symbolizes movement in time, spiritual changes. One hypostage of water is an update, cleansing, the other is associated with the dark, destructive start, with death. Rivers are connected with a space-time organization of the text: a cracker and war become participants in the fateful collision of the Russian and Napoleonic armies. In “War and Peace” rivers are also a symbol of utopian democratic ashes. The motive of aquatic element and water substance is a representation of the universal concept “Water”, which, together with other mental units, reflects the artist’s life philosophy, the originality of his thinking, the national picture of the world.