Article

Name: Sacred-minus and profane-plus in prose by Leonid Dobychin

Authors: F. V. Kuvshinov

Lipetsk Institute of Cooperation (Regional Subsidiary) BUKEP

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: sacred, profane, Dobychin, rhythm, everyday life, irony, Gogol, point of view

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