Mythologeme “Earth” in the Novel “Life and Fate” by V. S. Grossman

Abstract

The article examines aspects of the inner world, mental images that arise in connection with the comprehension of the writer’s artistic world. The study analyzes the mythologeme “Earth” (“mother moist earth, motherland, native land, nature”), the fi gurative structure of which is presented in the artistic space of the novel “Life and Fate” by V. S. Grossman. Linguistic means express mythological and symbolic imagery in a work of art. The purpose of the study is to analyze the images of “one’s own”, “native” and “alien”, “non-native”, which actualize the mythologeme “Earth” in the individual Grossman’s picture of the world. Highlighting conceptual connections in the text shows the ideas of V. S. Grossman and his individual author’s picture, reveals the linguocultural meanings of the national linguistic picture of the world. In our study, the mythologeme “Earth” is considered as an individual author’s formation in the artistic world in the novel “Life and Fate” by V. S. Grossman. The mythologem “Earth” represents the author’s multidimensional understanding of the images of the earth (the image of the native land, the image of “mother moist earth”, the image of the motherland, the image of nature) as generic markers of the metaphorical imagery of the mythologem earth. In turn, they reveal the connection between Grossman’s author’s worldview and the artistic world of the work, in which the ancestral connection of generations protecting Mother Earth is actualized in multiple contexts. The topic raised is not presented in the scientifi c literature, which undoubtedly determines the novelty of the study, during which analytical, descriptive and interpretive methods were used. In the course of the study, four semantic blocks of contexts are identifi ed that express the generic taxonomy of the imagery of the mythologeme “Earth” (the image of the native land, the image of “mother moist earth”, the image of the motherland, the image of nature). The study of the imagery of the mythologeme “Earth” by identifying generic, mythological, theomorphic, ritual, ritual metaphors seems to be a scientifi cally based necessity and a prospect for further research into the individual author’s picture of the world.

Keywords

• mother moist earth
• farmer
• reaper
• motherland
• native land