Composition as a means of creating a documentary element in the novel “Finches in Armor” by G. Venus

Abstract

Georgy Venus was a Russian and Soviet writer, participant in the First World War and the Civil War, and a first-wave emigrant. He is still little known to readers and literary scholars. Georgy Venus’s prose is not documentary, but it contains documentary elements at the poetic level. In particular, the author reveals the documentary element in his prose using the compositional technique of montage. This article discusses the documentary element in G. Venus’s novels. The documentary element of the novel “Finches in Armor” is created at two poetic levels: the compositional technique of montage and the pointwise introduction of “authenticity” into the text of the novel, such as toponymy, autobiography, and some events and details that indicate historical accuracy without explicit references to historical events. The novel shows the change of eras, a turning point in the consciousness and destinies of people. Using the technique of montage, the author puts disparate fragments together, which helps him depict the picture of an entire historical layer, a geographical whole with many of its realities. What G. Venus creates is not just a novel, his work resembles a war chronicle, created on the basis of real events. Thus, by applying the techniques, related to composition, formation of images, and descriptive series, used to understand the text of the novel “Finches in Armor”, we realize the historical events through a work of art.