THE SPECIFICS OF CHRONOTOPE IN L. PERVOMAYSKY`S NOVEL “WILD HONEY”

Abstract

War, as a social cataclysm, robs individuals of home and peace, and causes separation; it forces a person to exist on the road, compelling them to transcend the boundaries of their usual personal space. A distinctive feature of the artistic concept of Leonid Pervomaysky’s novel “Wild Honey” (1963) is the combination of ideological and philosophical-psychological lines that define its aesthetics.The writer demonstrates the dependence of an individual’s fate on overall state policy, portraying its destructive impact on the personality. In the novel, the military theme is raised in connection with the motifs of seeking happiness and love, which contribute to the individualisation of characters, manifesting the variety of human fates amidst historical upheavals. The author transmits ideological myths, yet the specific nature of the epic chronotope’s conceptualisation and the motifs testify to the artist’s gravitation towards form-shaping elements more characteristic of modernism than of socialist realism. This points to a stylistic synthesis, which is typical of this period (similarly seen in novels such as R. Andriyashyk`s “People of Fear” and P. Zahrebelnyi’s “The Miracleˮ, etc.).The opposition of “road vs. home” acquires significant importance in the plot: the novel begins with the heroine’s journey and ends with her finding peace and happiness in her granddaughter, Sasha, named in honour of her repressed husband. In the very first sentence of the prologue to “Wild Honeyˮ, the image of the past is associated with the road. Memories connect the woman with the figures of her past life, giving Varvara’s existence a sense of fullness and stability. The motif of “the border” is literalised by the frontline reality, specifically the opposition of “our own vs. the enemy”, while also referring to the characters’ moral boundaries. The earth is conceptualised as the place of an ontological battle between good and evil and is identified with the mythologeme of the Mother; the sky, in turn, is associated with the motifs of flight, wings, and an individual’s spiritual vision. Furthermore, the images of earth and sky, dominant in the spatial organisation, are linked to the heroic motif of “trench truthˮ. Against the backdrop of the military conflict, a woman’s internal drama unfolds, and the characters` experiences and moods provide the literary work’s structure with integrity. In the novel, the present frames the events of the past, with historical time specified by dates significant for Soviet society, acquiring crucial importance.