Article: PDF
DOI: 10.26170/FK19-04-12
Abstract: The organization of space in the writer’s work is a key to understanding of the writer’s worldview. The poetics of space in the literary heritage of the Leningrad poetess O. F. Bergholz has not yet been considered. The purpose of the article is to reveal the meaning-forming role of images of “home” (closed space), “path” (open space), “threshold”, “gate”, “window” (border space) and the besieged Leningrad (extreme space) in the artistic picture of the world of the poet. The research shows how the traditional image of the house in Bergholz’s work at first opens the boundaries to the outside world, thanks to the actualization of “threshold” places, then turns into anti-home (prison “minus”-space), and later models as a social space, transforming from “mine” into “ours”, and expands its boundaries to the city. Since wartime, the blockade Leningrad becomes the main representative spatial parameter in Bergholzʼs artistic picture of the world. The topos of Leningrad is assigned in the texts by a well-defined geographical space and in a specific historical time, which is constantly emphasized by the author at the level of the titles of her works. At the same time, geographically-specific image of Leningrad turns into a city-symbol, generating new meanings in the works of Muse of the siege. In a film story They Lived in Leningrad the city is presented as three-dimensional, panoramic, “widescreen”; in the same name play the spatial images are cut down, the conflict gets a psychological implication and refers to an “inner man”, the private space of the besieged city-dweller. In the last wording of the play Born in Leningrad the city is actualized as the place of the second birth of the besieged city-dweller. Leningrad in the poem February Diary is identified as an extreme space in which a person is characterized by the fullest sense of being. Leningrad in the late lyrics is modeled through the mythologemes “father”, “home” and “path”: whereupon, the “home” and “path” are no longer in opposition, “home” and “city” are recognized as identical, and the statement “Leningrad-father” is given in line with the idea of the play Born in Leningrad. The semantics of space revealed in the article, is of great importance in understanding of Bergholzʼs fate drama and her self-realization as a writer of the Soviet era.
Key words: LYRIC GENRES; RUSSIAN POETRY; RUSSIAN POETS; LITERARY IMAGES; SEMANTICS OF SPACE; HOUSES; SPACE

For citation

Prozorova, N. A. Semantics of Space in the Artistic Picture of the World of O. F. Bergholz / N. A. Prozorova. In Philological Class. 2019. №4 (58). P. 94-100. DOI 10.26170/FK19-04-12.