The image of the “living earth” in the chapter “The Trinity Day” of the novel by I. S. Shmelev The Summer of the Lord

Abstract

This article reveals the features of the artistic embodiment of the image of the “living earth” in the chapter “The Trinity Day” of the novel The Summer of the Lord by the writer of the Russian émigré of the first half of the 20th century Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev. The Summer of the Lord is the pinnacle work in the author’s oeuvre. The book is based on the autobiographical material. In the chapter “The Trinity Day” the author depicted his own childhood memories of celebrating the Orthodox holiday of the Trinity. In the picture of the lush Russian summer nature shown in the chapter “The Trinity Day” and filled with special value and meaning semantics, the image of the blessed “living earth”, correlated with the image of Russia, becomes the leading one. The artistic technique of color painting dominates in revealing the figurative and motif text range, which acquires a symbolic meaning. The motif of the “revival” of the earthly world on the day of the holy celebration reveals the connection of Christian ideas about God as a life-giving principle, the source of real life. Images of birches, motifs of light, brilliance, fragrance, and spiritualization of the earth receive the important symbolic and spiritual significance in the narrative structure of the chapter “The Trinity Day”. The image of the “living earth” in the text of the novel The Summer of the Lord acquires a universal, comprehensive meaning, includes not only images of nature, but also the home space surrounding the main character of the work – a seven-year-old Vanya, as well as images of the temple, Moscow, the Kremlin. The main idea of this chapter of the novel is the belief in the direct descent of the Lord Jesus Christ on the day of Trinity onto the earthly world in order to bless it. The nostalgic intonation of the adult narrator sounding in the chapter “The Trinity Day”, introduces in the text the idea of making the image of Russia sacred. The bygone childhood and Homeland, forever lost in terrible historical cataclysms, acquire a sacred character, appear in the author’s understanding as the blessed world of Holy Russia. The Russia of his childhood turns out to be included in the single circle of Christian Eternity and existential being.  

Keywords

• image of the “living earth”
• chapter
• novel the summer of the lord
• i. s. shmelev
• literature of the russian émigré
• image of nature
• motif of light