Tradition in the Post- Traditional World: National Literature as Experience of Prolongation

Abstract

The article examines the meaning behind the concept “tradition” as a factor in the self-determination of a national literature and its correlation with modernity. Implicit complementarity of tradition and modernity, repetition and renewal is one of the cornerstones of the sociocultural self-organization of society and culture. The proposed dynamic model is oriented towards a holistic approach: the substantial significance of tradition conceptually relates to its processual character and predisposition to creative prolongation. The existential meaning of tradition as a form of continuous collective memory most fully manifests itself in its literary reconstruction. Drawing from the work of V. Rasputin and F. Iskander that represent two different cultural traditions, the article traces intense interdependence of such dichotomies as “old / new” and “continuity / gap.” Within the framework of artistic actualization of the complementarity between the constant and the variable, tradition appears as an organic prerequisite of the national model of modernization.

Keywords

• tautology
• temporality
• v. rasputin
• f. iskander
• processuality
• semantic gap
• matera
• chegem
• creative self-identification
• nostalgic traditionalism