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Image of a Russian Woman by I. Turgenev and V. Rasputin
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DOI: 10.26170/FK20-04-13
Abstract: The article considers female images in two works of Russian literature, Ivan Turgenev’s essay “Living Relics” from the collection “Notes of the Hunter” and Valentin Rasputin’s novel “The Last Term”, in order to discover the common spiritual and ethical values inherent in traditional Russian culture. The article uses the axiological approach from the perspective of Christian Orthodox values, presented in domestic literary criticism by the articles of V. V. Zenkovsky, the monograph of M. M. Dunaev, the concepts of V. E. Khalizev and I. A. Esaulov, as well as the works of a number of researchers. Along with the portrait similarity of Luker’ya and the old woman Anna, the study looks at the common features of their characters, world vision, attitude to the world, formed by the pivotal Christian idea of salvation. The category of eternity associated with the idea of salvation is a key feature of the two female images. The identification of the unity of the deep foundations of the personalities of both characters allows one to determine the type of Russian woman with fundamental qualities in Orthodox ethic – humility, patience, understanding of sin, repentance, recognition of the greatness of God’s world, faith in the salvation of the soul and eternal life, which is the spiritual and moral core of images. The category of eternity in relation to the category of time is considered in the article according to Christian values with the support of the Holy Scriptures, the works of Augustine the Blessed, A. F. Losev. Eternity is defined as the absence of time, linear and unidirectional extension, and as the contemporaneity of the past, present and future. Like Augustine the Blessed, Turgenev and Rasputin define the heart of the person who is engaged in a grateful dialogue with God as the topos of eternity perception. A comparative typological analysis of the images of the female protagonists of the two works reveals the continuity of the cultural memory of the Russian people. The results of this study can be used in the course of teaching of literature at school, as well as in the disciplines of higher philological education related to the history of Russian literature and the problems of the modern literary process.
Key words: Writers; literary creativity; literary genres; literary plots; literary images; the image of a woman; Russian women; axiological approach; Christian picture of the world; artistic time; category of eternity; essays; stories.
For citation
Ivanova, V. Ya. (2020). Image of a Russian Woman by I. Turgenev and V. Rasputin. In Philological Class. 2020. Vol. 25 ⋅ №4. P. 131–141. DOI 10.26170/FK20-04-13.