Genre transformations and stylistic "keys" of G.D. Grebenshchikov's ornamental prose

Tsaregorodtseva Svetlana Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0002-2510-2324 PhD in Philology Associate Professor of the Department of History of Journalism and Literature, Moscow State University named after A. S. Griboyedov. 111024, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, shosse Entuziastov, 21 alatas@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Agenosov Vladimir Veniaminovich Doctor of Philology Professor of the Department of History of Journalism and Literature, A. S. Griboyedov Moscow University 111024, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, shosse Entuziastov, 21 vlad-agenosov@yandex.ru Lobacheva Natal'ya Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0001-8846-6021 PhD in Philology Associate Professor of the Department of Philology and Teaching Methods, Humanities and Pedagogical Academy (branch) of the Federal State Educational Institution "V.I. Vernadsky KFU" in Yalta. 298635, Russia, respublika Krym, g. Yalta, ul. Sevastopol'skaya, 2a lobacheva_natalia@bk.ru

Pinaev Sergei Mikhailovich ORCID: 0000-0001-7064-7510 Doctor of Philology Professor of the Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117279, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya, 6 serpinaev@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The search for new genre forms and the renewal of the artistic language of Russian prose at the beginning of the XX century led to the emergence of a qualitatively new literary phenomenon called ornamental prose. Ornamental prose originated, first of all, in the works of A. Bely, E. Zamyatin, B. Pilnyak, A.M. Remizov, I.S. Shmelev, G.D. Grebenshchikov and other modernist and traditionalist writers. The connection with the ornamental prose of many writers has been well studied by both literary critics and linguists: L.N. Anpilova, E.S. Babkina, T.M. Vakhitova, E.Y. Geimbukh, M.M. Golubkov, A.M. Gracheva, N.Y. Gryakalova, E.P. Kartashova, A.A. Kozhin, S.I. Kormilov, V.P. Kryuchkova, E.A. Lavrova, L.A. Novikov, I.L. Novokreschenova, Yu. B. Orlitsky, V. A. Petisheva, S.Yu.Preobrazhensky, I.I. Profatilo, I.R. Ratke, etc. Such a large number of studies that have appeared in recent decades indicate a scientific interest in theoretical issues and artistic practice of ornamentalist writers.  However, their work has been studied to varying degrees, for example, there is no research on G.D. Grebenshchikov's ornamental prose. To identify the features of the ornamental prose of this writer, we will turn to the works in which studies of ornamentation at the junction of linguistics and literary studies were carried out: A.M. Gracheva ^[2], S.I. Kormilova ^[3], L.A. Novikov ^[7,8].   

G.D. Grebenshchikov is the author of a multi–volume epic novel "Churaevs", on which he worked for more than forty years and a short novel "Epic about Mikul Buyanovich", written in six weeks.

The novel "Epic about Mikul Buyanovich" was first published in February 1924 in Paris ^[1]. Grebenshchikov was often asked questions about the 1917 revolution and its consequences.  The writer needed "a short exhaustive formula to answer the questions posed by the French: what happened to the Russian people who took part in such a bloody massacre of the chosen people of their homeland, and especially how no one helped out, did not protect their Sovereign, but even seemed to sympathize with the atrocity of the unheard-of massacre of the Anointed of God and his whole family?" ^{[2, p.365]}. Wiesbaden was occupied by France at that time, and Grebenshchikov and his wife often visited there. Once, the writer recalls, during a service in the Wiesbaden church, "during the Cherubic, when, after the Eucharist, a host of angels and cherubs descended over the Chalice to the Throne, on which the miraculous transformation of wine into the Blood of Christ is performed, a hitherto unknown tremor occurred in me… And when the words of the Cherubim were pronounced: "We will put aside every care of life now," tears poured out of my eyes like hail, because the whole formula of the most complex plan of my task that I was looking for was revealed to me with incredible clarity and in every detail… And even the very name appeared: "Epic" ^{[2, pp.365-366]}.

The plot of the novel, built according to the rules of "lump composition" (Yu.Tynyanov), is divided into three main parts, each of which is called a legend: the first part is "The Word from the Song", the second part is "The Tale of Treasures" and the final legend is "The King–Brawler".  All three tales contain four stories each.  The finale of the novel is a kind of "After–Telling", which consists of a saying and a fairy tale about the repentance of the main character and the construction of a Temple.

The main character of the novel, in accordance with the author's strategy, has different names in three tales: Mikulka – Matvey Bochkar – Ivan Likhoy.

The novel is based on the principle of "dynamic composition" (L.A. Novikov's term), the path of the protagonist of the novel Mikula through the sinful life of a bandit during the Revolution of 1917 through humility and repentance to the life of a monk living in Christ. Mikula personifies the fate of the Russian people- a giant who survived the fratricidal war and lack of faith, repented and found in Orthodoxy – the basis for reconciliation and forgiveness. Roman explained what happened to Russia in 1917. He was very famous and popular among the Russian emigration and translated into many European languages. Grebenshchikov translated the novel "Epic about Mikul Buyanovich" into English himself.

Critics of the Russian diaspora highly appreciated the novel and noted its characteristic style codes: "The epic and song warehouse of the Words about Igor's Regiment is in charge of Grebenshchikov. And all this flows like multicolored beads-monists wriggling like a Siberian river. But not only this fret fascinates "Epic....". Faith in the "immense forces", the waves of this faith in Russia-Siberia "dung-earth, peasant" - are filled with "Epic..." It is impossible to cover the artistic content in a newspaper feuilleton, it must be read" ^[13].

According to the critic M. Benediktov (M.Y. Berkhin), "Epic ..." is "a truly Russian novel " ..."With rare exceptions, the author quite managed to sustain a novel in the epic style. Few Russian writers are so subject to the treasures of the national language as Grebenshchikov" ^[6].

"This book is an event. This is an ingot of power, a bright forest krinitsa," K.D. Balmont wrote about the novel by G.D. Grebenshchikov in a letter to D. Shakhovskaya dated 04/25/1924. 

Igor Savchenko, reviewing the work of G.D. Grebenshchikov, in the magazine "Free Siberia" reported that "The Epic of Mikul Buyanovich" is the same artistic attempt to find the key to the thunderstorm and storm of the Russian vortex. Having widely expanded the picture of "Russian unrestrained" and unbridled bacchanalia of human turbidity, Grebenshchikov feels that someone will come out of this sea of "human villainies" who will "paint reality into earthly fairy tales" ^{[13, p.46]}. According to Savchenko, the creative evolution of the writer is a movement "from everyday life to being, from a realistic image to a symphonic display" ^{[13, p.47]}.

The second wave of interest in "Epic ..." among the Russian emigration began after the publication of this novel in English in the United States. It is noteworthy that in the early forties, with a difference of several months, two books by Russian writers were published in English: "Real life of Sebastian Knight" ("The True Life of Sebastian Knight") Vladimir Nabokov and "The Epic of Mikul Buyanovich" ("The Turbulent Giant") George Grebenshchikov. Both novels are united by the fact that these are the first English-language books by writers published in America.

About the novel ("The Turbulent Giant") George Grebenshchikov was written by many well-known mass media in the USA: "The New York Times", "The Nation", "The Hartford Times", "The Herald Tribune", where reviews and assessments of the novel by American critics were published (John Cournos, Paul Rosenfeld, Fred T. Marsh, Taylor Glenn, Leticia P. Osborn, Carl Less, Pearl Buck, Laura Abell, Antoine Bourdelle, Paul Boyer, Louis D. Froelick).  Among the features of "Epics ..." American critics especially noted the unusual plot and composition, epic stylization, the mythological nature of the symbols.

The reminiscential background and epic stylization are already outlined in the title of the novel. Grebenshchikov deliberately brings the novel closer to the epic about the hero-oratai Mikul Selyaninovich, the beloved son of the Mother of the Raw Earth, who invented plowing. Only he can lift the earth's thrust. Mikula in the epic epic is a carrier of folk Slavic culture, unlike other heroes: Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitich – carriers of the princely-druzhinnaya alien culture. 

Mikula Buyanovich, the main character of Grebenshchikov's novel, like Mikula Selyaninovich, are peasants who became warriors. The image of Mikula Selyaninovich "contains" the root historical fate of the people. Grebenshchikov's novel with the main character, whose name is  Mikula Buyanovich. At the level of linguopoetics in Grebenshchikov's novel, this idea is extremely clearly expressed in the description of the patchwork quilt in which the history of Mikula's family is "sewn up".

According to V. Rasputin, "The Epic of Mikul Buyanovich" is a legend about the fate of Russia. In no way will she, this fate, find a reliable pier, everyone is fluttering and fluttering her, like a canoe in the sea, raging waves that are not controlled for the good of the people's element. The people may be the hero Mikula Selyaninovich, the orator of the grain field and the defender of the kingdom, or they may become Mikula Buyanovich, who gained heroic strength from his native land and, in temptations, anguish, lack of faith and alienness, who led her to spend both his share and the share of the kingdom. From a hero-intercessor, he is able to become a hero, destroying left and right everything that has been created for a long time"..." Brother and sister, Mikulka and Dunyashka from a Siberian village, left their native threshold, by today's standards, very close - here to Russia, here to Siberia. And yet they died themselves and brought incalculable suffering to the land of their ancestors. And if, as today, to Europe, and if to America, freeing up their places to strangers? And if again past the temple?

In Russia in ancient times, heroes, like Ilya Muromets, became saints after their winter exploits...That saved Russia among the trials that were not easier than the current ones" ^{[11, p.388]}.

Russian Russian literature is great and abundant, as is the Russian land, but without Grebenshchikov, the author of the multi-volume epic "Vasily Churaev", without the autobiographical "Yegorka's Life" and "Epics about Mikul Buyanovich" it would be incomplete. Without Grebenshchikov's original language, vigorous and precious, without the epic breadth of his tales, without characters sewn by the mighty nature and the eternity of the Russian post on earth, without generous outbursts from the wide sleeve of his talent, with which pictures of winter and summer are drawn on the vast Siberian expanses - without all this bright, rich, satisfying, - and our earthly will would not be felt in full measure, and a person would look stronger. As a master of Grebenshchikov, he is large and strong; he writes as if he is laying fortress walls, and his words fall firmly and comfortably into these walls – they will not be shaken anywhere. He does not display small details and patterns, half-tones, half-sounds are either not given to him, or he does not consider it necessary to deal with them: the hand is large, hyperopia interferes. But the amazing thing is that these details appear to the reader themselves, they are finely and vividly drawn on a large living, naturally and without effort. This is a special gift of the artist, a rare and magical gift" ^{[11, p.388]}.

As works of ornamental prose, Grebenshchikov's novels abound in figurative and expressive means: epithets, comparisons, hyperbole, personifications, and figurative and rhythmic leitmotives can also be noted in them. The motive of the repentant sinner (the image of Mikula) is the main one in the novel "Epic ..." and one of the main ones in the Churaevs (the image of Erema). The linvopoetics of the multi-volume novel "Churaevs" has less extensive ornamental fields (L.A. Novikov's term) than "Epic ..." and has a more complex synthetic nature, which deserves a separate comprehensive study. (It is worth noting that the genre nature of the novel "Churaevs" has already become the subject of scientific research ^[4]).

Speaking about the Russian traditions of "weaving words" in D.G. Grebenshchikov's ornamental prose, the following stylistic "keys" of the novel "Epic of Mikul Buyanovich" can be noted.

The presence of lyrical rhythmized digressions of the author: "And as soon as the rivers became – and – and! They went from end to end of Mother Russia with whistles, with angry howls, with whips, brooms and hammers, the disheveled white witches to walk around!" ^{[1, p.9]}.

1.                 The fundamental moment of ornamental prose is the musical rhythm, which leads the author either to the metrization of prose, or to a fairy tale as an orientation to the spoken word, i.e. to its sound. That is why most Russian literary critics attribute ornamental prose to a fairy tale.

Numerous inversions (sledge roads, peasant trustees, on the tops of the Sayan and Altai mountains, etc.) complement the peculiar stylistic "ornament" of the utterance, creating a unique feeling of measured rhythm that sets the reader up for the unhurried narration inherent in the tale.

The simultaneous use of a series of derivative words, lexical and syntactic repetitions also contributes to the specific rhythmization of the utterance: "Good, good" ^{[1, p.25]}, "Petrovan has a cow. So, there is someone to milk the cow, so there are those who need cow's milk more than bread" ^{[1, p.12]}.

2. At the lexical level proper, in G.D. Grebenshchikov's ornamental prose, a word begins to play a special role, gaining independence in relation to the plot material and claiming to become the leading principle of the organization of the text. This is reflected in the use of:

a) complex words (snowy winters, rivers, spokonvechno, etc.)

b) lexical dialectisms (shaggy booker, wolf's dokha, does not see the scratch, poblaznilo, zarobit, merciless, izhno, etc.), phonetic (chizhalo, falling boles, robin, moget, zhist, pachport) and grammatical (fox cubs, zazabnut, scared, jump up, shod, letos, vesnos, winter, parnenko, does not want, etc.);

c) regional phraseological units (You will become neither a husband, nor a farmhand, nor a smart, nor a fool. It is true that it is said that a sheep will not be born from a dog, etc.)

c) archaic forms (see, burn, zadelye, etc.)

3. At the grammatical level, of particular interest, in our opinion, are dialectal prepositional constructions with the preposition "on" (daughter on age, etc.) and archaic elements dating back to the Old Russian syntax:

a) connective relations in compound constructions are expressed with the help of conjunctions:

 - And (And that gentleman rode in the remote Siberian fields, in the most convict, in the wildest and saddest… But I found a task, I stopped by ... ^{[1, p.11]}.) The use of this union in the connective function in combination with inversions and lexical repetitions creates a rhythmic mood of the text, which is emphasized by the use of words with consonant endings standing in the same case. Such homeoptotones create a feeling of smooth motion sickness, characteristic of a fairy tale.

- YES (And Dunya, too, rarely goes to people... now she has books and conversations about monasteries. ^{[1, p.12]}). As you know, the union of YES has gradually lost its connective function, in modern Russian it has a colloquial connotation. However, the narrator intentionally uses similar constructions throughout the work, observing the tone of the tale.

b) a large number of complicated constructions (comparisons, clarifications, explanations, etc.), as well as complex sentences: "Snow has been lying since the Second Saviour, since the day of the Transfiguration ^{[1, p.9]}.All the windows in the huts are decorated, as if a hundred beauties in a celestial tower" ^{[1, p.9]}.

c) the use of a postpositive particle after the noun creates an archaic flavor of the utterance (there is nothing to make burkul on me, etc.)

d) the use of obsolete infinitive forms (Then the peasants will call you ...)

e) the introduction of outdated service parts of speech into the characters' replicas (against the mother ... they already have seven horses).

4. At the stylistic level, ornamentalism is manifested in the use of:

a) epithets having an occasional character, created according to the method of word composition white-down ... dung-earth, dusty-sweaty ... Russia;

b) Rhetorical interrogative sentences that have homogeneous sentence members in their composition, which contributes to the creation of the effect of contemplation: "Isn't that why the white-down, cold in winter and dung-earthen, dusty-sweaty in summer peasant Russia lives only?" ^{[1, p.10]}. "Dream, theater, nightmare or real life?" (4, p.62) "Why do all these millions of those doomed to eternal struggle and poverty, to drunkenness and crime and to reproduce against their will and desire live?" ^{[1, p.10]}.

The linguistic features and bright ornamentation in the novel "Epic ..." are due to the writer's deep interest in folklore and its separate genres: Russian folk songs, legends, folk utopian legends of various peoples of Russia. According to the memories of his relatives, he composed fairy tales and told them to children, sang Russian "folk" songs well, showed interest in the song culture of the Kazakh people, knew the legends of the Altaians.  And later, while living in the USA, Grebenshchikov lectured on Russian folk songwriting. Before "Epics..." he wrote several ornamental novels and short stories that have intertextual connections with the archaic and classical folklore of different peoples: "In a certain kingdom", "In the fields", "In the gorge", "Vision of a Horseman", "Water", "Dove", "Edge", "Two Christmas trees (Story-legend)", "Dream", "Sorceress", "On the river", "On the Ulba river", "Orataevo word", "The first vision of the mountain", "The first vision of the river", "Crying fields", "Traveler", "Earthly joys", "Russian song", "Bright Joy", "Fairy Tale", "Steppe Crows", "Steppe and sky", "Bolekey Ulgen (A study of Kyrgyz legend)", "God without a name (Buryat story)", "Khan-Altai", "Echo (Fairy tale legend)" and others .

Grebenshchikov's early ornamental prose became a creative laboratory for writing the novel "The Epic of Mikul Buyanovich". The peculiarities of his poetics, stylistic "keys", musical rhythm, fragmentary composition, extended ornamental fields, allow us to attribute the novel "Epic about Mikul Buyanovich" by G.D. Grebenshchikov to one of the most striking examples of ornamental prose in Russian literature.

You can simply select and copy link from below text field.