This article deals with the problem of the representation of the “sacred/
profane” in the prose of L. I. Dobychin. The main artistic device of the
writer is the rhythm of the compositional, semantic, motive, figurative structure
of the work. It also applies to the problem of the sacred / profane. The
Dobychin’s way of reproducing the secular and the sacred becomes ironic and
lyrical that depends on the point of view of the characters who can be typologically
divided into “adults” and “children”. Mixing the sacred and the profane by
their infinite alternation the “adult” point of view based on irony translates sacred
symbols into profane ones, replacing the content moment with the formalities,
which are the reasons for losing the value component of everyday life and
replacing it with the “emptied” emblems. Therefore, the “adult” characters of
Dobychin are devoid of psychologism, they are like puppets that mechanically
move from one work to another, or more precisely, from one text to another. In
order not to lose his shallow characters, Dobychin carefully arranges each text
according to the laws of symmetry (frequently using a circular plot structure),
establishing a certain mechanics of the characters movement in the space of the
art world. In contrast to the “adult” view, the “children’s” view based on the
lyrical perception of the world is the author’s attempt to return to the ontological
world harmony, when there was no division into secular and sacred. The alternation
of the sacred and the secular through the prism of the “child”, i.e. the
naive view, results in eliminating boundaries between the profane and the sacred.
There is a total destruction of the fundamental opposition of “everyday
life/Being”. Thus, the transforming view of the child uniformly focuses on the
sacred and the profane, as it happens with the adult characters. But if the latter reduce the sacred to the level of the ordinary losing its enigmaticity, then the
children’s view of the world reveals something miraculous, mystery in everyday
life, due to the figurative emotional perception of the world. Thus, the ingenuous
(child) experience of the Being, which combines the “low” and “high” Being
into the original harmony, is truly valuable for Dobychin. For this purpose
the writer tries to go beyond the category of time (before or after the creation of
the world). Therefore, it makes no difference either “Soviet” or “pre-revolutionary”
everyday life is harmonized by the “children’s” view, as well as the
“adult” view equally vulgarizes the sacred symbols of being of the pre-revolutionary
and Soviet eras.
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