National, mass and general human features in A. Ganieva’s novel “Bride and groom”

Abstract

The aesthetic position of Alisa Ganieva is close to that of the “new realists” generation (Z. Prilepin, R. Senchin, S. Shargunov, D. Gutsko and G. Sadulaev) who recorded the feeling of a deep modern culture crisis in prose. Turning to the traditional themes of a national character and a folk hero in Russian prose, the writers introduce new connotations into their interpretations. Soviet writers (Ch. Aitmatov, V. Rasputin, R. Gamzatov, etc.) interpreted mythology and folklore as part of the people’s historical experience, passed on from generation to generation rationally and meaningfully. Modern writers are focused on identifying archetypes of mass consciousness that are inherited unconsciously and give rise to neomyths. Alisa Ganieva’s novel “Bride and Groom” (2015) is based on the ancient version of the androgyne myth. At the same time, the author transforms all elements of mythopoetics. The plot of the novel is structured as the movement of the characters towards each other and its logical outcome – a wedding. However, the ending is rethought: the wedding does not happen. A harmonious worldview, typical of mythological consciousness, is unattainable; the world appears to be illogical, and happiness is unattainable. This interpretation of the myth reflects the author’s perception of folk and mass cultures. In the novel, people’s consciousness is presented as mythological, the one which is irretrievably lost. Modern mass culture is shown as a distorted copy of mythological consciousness – a quasi-myth, in which the formal properties of myth are preserved but its content is emasculated. In mass consciousness, the essential properties of the archaic worldview are deformed: the harmony of man and the cosmos, the intra-clan unity, the cyclical nature of time stages as the law of cosmic renewal, the festive and carnival components are distorted. The result is a quasi-myth of a consumer society devoid of national characteristics but actively exploiting the ethnic component. Universal human values – love, pursuit of happiness, family based on spiritual closeness, search for truth – are represented by constants of existence that are not subject to time and fashion.