ივანე ბუნინის მინიატურების მხატვრული თავისებურებები

Abstract

The paper investigates a esthetic peculiarities of the Russian writer Ivan Bunin’s literary miniatures. The artistic distinctiveness of Bunin’s miniatureslies in their conceptualorientation, composition, artistic expressiveness, and the choice of the means of expression. Considering miniature as a literary genre, one may observeits certain characteristics: small size and compactness of the piece, its thematic completeness, compositionaltightness; bipartite composition with vigorous ending; enhanced meaningfulnessof poetic utterance; symbolic nature of tangible details. Based on distinctive characteristics of Bunin’s literary miniatures, the paper proposes their typology, assorting them into lyrical-philosophical, religious-philosophical and social-moral categories/groups. However, this type of typology can only be considered as rather tentative, since a number of miniatures can be attributed to several groups at once. The paper discusses several groups of Bunin’s miniatures and determines their conceptual content and topicality. Setting apart the social-moral category allows focusing on describingthe people, and the Russian national character. In this type of texts, the author focuses on the disharmony of social relations, observing the bitter fate of the poor, desperate protagonists. This group comprises such miniatures as:The Date, Capital, Youth, First Class, Maria, Tears, The Cannibal Girl, Noon, Until Victory, The Mask, and The PreviousDay. A wide range of Bunin’s miniaturesbelong to the lyrical-philosophical category (The Sky above the Wall, The Calf’s Head, The Landau, The Grandfather, Bast Shoes, The Doomed House, Tears, The Gorge, First Love, The Ants’ Path, The Birthday, Music, Penguins, etc.). The main topic for this type of miniatures is that of life and death, of contrariety between the light and dark sides of the Russian national character. Here the great attention is paid to the theme of nature, which is lyrically expressed through bright epithets, metaphors, and details. In the texts of this group, lyricism is also achieved through the presentation of mysteries, solid motifs, mystical visions, and dreams. A small group of miniatures (The Blind, The Virgin’sDream, The Bast Shoes, The Fathers, Roosters, The Eagle, Flies) belong to the religious-philosophical category; the range of the covered topics directly corresponds to the essence of the human being, his or herrelationship with God, death, and the kingdom of nature. The unique innovation of the writer within the framework of such a small form and the specifics of the genre is the revealing of the characters of protagonists through presenting their elaborate portraits, the outlines of the material environment and landscapes. So, for example, the portraits of characters are created by presenting exotic details, and contrasts. By applying this approach in a minimalist way, the author creates certain unity of the exterior and interior of hischaracters. He thus highlights their national identity, their essence. The material world is presented in the author’s miniatures as multifaceted, and its description conveys the reality of the respectivebackground but alsothe possibility of its symbolic generalisation. The special place in Bunin’s miniatures is allocated to the topic of nature, stressing theperpetual connection between nature and the human being. In order to reflect the perfect images of nature, and landscapes, the writer uses different strokes, rendering sound, colour, touch or smell. We have observed that in Bunin’s miniatures, depending on seasonality, depictions of the winter or summer landscapes serve as the generalised image of mothernature. The transitional states of nature (spring, autumn) are virtually absent, as the landscape is associated with the image of eternity, while the material, tangible world merges with the internal human world and that of nature. The dominant images of nature comprise the blue sky, the contrasts of light and the dark, of heaven and earth, the motif of silence, and the bright-coloured characteristics of the natural world. Frequently depicted red and black colours are symbolic. While creating artistic images, Bunin uses a few of stylistic techniques, such as: montage, descriptive phrasal names, folk sayings and dialogues. The Bunin’s text can be understood and explained through the reader’s own life and aesthetic experience. Enhanced and active engagement of the reader is important for the writer. In general, Ivan Bunin’s miniatures provide an acute feel of artistic harmony; most of them are characterised by thorough and meticulous designof every single artistic detail and word, along with ultimate originality and tightness of the plot.