“Forth to Life” by E. Uruymagova in Light of Typological Commonality with Classical Examples of Family-Generic Novel

Abstract

The article analyzes the plot and image structure of the novel “Forth to Life” by E. Uruymagova (1905-1955) in the context of the traditions of a family-clan novel and its later (“Soviet”) modifications. One of the central problems is the disintegration of the proprietary world, its historical doom against the background of the awakening of the creative and organizing power of people, correlated by the author with the influence of the ideas of the revolution. The emphasis is made on the aspect of procreation (mentally defective heir or lack thereof) as a way to implement the narrative strategies of the work, its main idea. The relevance and novelty of the work are seen in the fact that the refraction of classical traditions in the display of the theme of physical and moral degradation of the bourgeois family did not become the subject of a separate study in the North Caucasian literature. The principles of comparative analysis in combination with the method of intertextual reconstruction of a single motif space are used to reproduce the two-vector nature of the successive relations of the Ossetian writer with the world classics masters (F. M. Dostoevsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. Franko, J. Golesworthy, M. Gorky, T. Mann) and literary followers (V. Gagloev, Kh. Teunov, I. Mashbash). It is proved that, despite the obvious refinement in the ideological paradigm of the era, Uruymagova’s novel is a landmark phenomenon of the multinational Soviet literature of the post-war years.

Keywords

• uruymagova
• concept
• motivic space
• tradition
• succession
• innovations
• north caucasian novel