Samara in Vassily Aksyonov’s novel “The new sweet style”

This article analyzes the image of Samara and its “Samara” meanings in V. Aksyonov’s novel “The New Sweet Style”. Having visited Samara numerous times in the 1990s and 2000s, the writer was well versed in the city’s history and geography and was able to reflect this knowledge in the novel’s chapter entitled “Samara”, creating the image of a century-old Samara resident who has not only survived two different political systems (she was born in the Russian Empire and lived for a long time in the Soviet Union), but has also retained a relative independence and a sense of humor. The article consistently analyzes the temporal, spatial, and semantic components of this image. Specifically, it demonstrates that the heroine of the “Samara” chapter experiences time in two parts: On the external side of her “self”, she goes with the flow and is part of the temporal flow of her era, but on the other – inner – side of this “self”, she finds a position where she exists outside of time, unrelated to it. The heroine of the “Samara” chapter is similarly structured: She finds herself between her temporary home and the eternal Volga, on a “balcony” that serves as an intermediate place between the fleetingness of time and the leisurely pace of eternity. Finally, it is shown that the “semantic geometry” of the image includes such components as smoking French cigarettes, a passion for aromatic tea, and reading dictionaries and encyclopedias, which together allow the heroine to gain autonomy in relation to the era and find a position close to that of God. In conclusion, we state that V. Aksyonov’s image of the “old woman who outlived time” proved popular in literature of the 2000s and 2010s.

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