SPECIFIC SKAZ FEATURES IN THE MIKHAIL TCHERNOKOV’S NOVEL «THE LIFE OF VASKA ZMIEV»

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23670/IRJ.2022.120.6.083

ОСОБЕННОСТИ СКАЗОВОГО ПОВЕСТВОВАНИЯ В ПОВЕСТИ МИХАИЛА ЧЕРНОКОВА «ЖИТИЕ ВАСЬКИ ЗМИЕВА»

Научная статья

Тяпкова Н.А.*

ORCID: 0000-0003-1155-8643,

Северный (Арктический) федеральный университет, Архангельск, Россия

* Корреспондирующий автор (ntyapkova[at]gmail.com)

Аннотация

Статья посвящена повествовательным особенностям повести Михаила Чернокова «Житие Васьки Змиева». Предметом исследования является сказовое повествование первой трети ХХ века на примере частного случая Северного текста русской литературы. Научная новизна статьи связана с отсутствием в отечественной филологии исследований, посвященных своеобразию языка произведений северного писателя. Особенности сказового повествования связаны с общими тенденциями эпохи и литературного процесса, определяют своеобразие главного героя, сюжета, образной системы, языковых особенностей, взаимоотношений автора и читателя. Анализ статьи закладывает предпосылки для более глубокого прочтения литературного наследия Михаила Чернокова в целом. Работа дает представление об истоках художественного метода писателя и вносит определенный вклад в понимание литературного процесса на Русском Севере первой трети ХХ века. Иллюстративный материал работы позволяет аргументировать теоретические положения исследования.

Ключевые слова: сказ, повествование, Северный текст русской литературы, устная речь, Михаил Черноков

SPECIFIC SKAZ FEATURES IN THE MIKHAIL TCHERNOKOV’S NOVEL «THE LIFE OF VASKA ZMIEV»

Research article

Tiapkova N.A.*

ORCID: 0000-0003-1155-8643,

Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Arkhangelsk, Russia

* Corresponding author (ntyapkova[at]gmail.com)

Abstract

The article presents the study of the narrative features of Mikhail Tchernokov’s novel “The life of VaskaZmiev”. The object of the research is skaz narration dating back to the 1910-1930s, on the example of a particular Northern Russian literary text. The scientific significance of the article is in the lack of the research of the Northern Russian writers’ unique language in the modern philology.

The specific traits of skaz narration are connected with general tendencies of the time and the literary process. They define the original quality of the main character, imagery system of the plot, language features and author-reader relationship. The analysis of the novel opens the way to a deeper research of Tchernokov’s literary legacy. The work presents the idea of the author’s creative sources, as well as makes an attempt to shed the light on the literary process in the Russian North in the 1910-1930s. The illustrative material of the work supports the theoretical positions of the research.

Keywords: skaz, narration, Northern text of the Russian literature, spoken language, Mikhail Tchernokov.

Introduction

Classical skaz tradition in the 19th century Russian literature resulted in the appearance of a number of prose phenomena in the 20th century, specifically in the works of A. Remisov, E. Zamyatin, M. Zoschenko, etc. Tale narration was developed further by the Northern writers, mainly in the works of Boris Shergin and Stepan Pisakhov.

There was a unique situation in the 1910-30s Russian literature: the «skaz» type of narration flourished and simultaneously became the focus of attention of the researchers of literary language. M.Bakhtin, V. Vinogradov, B. Eikhenbaum, Y.Tinyanov and others managed to specify the major features of the skaz. It must be noted that skaz is a multi-layered concept [3, P. 39]. Firstly, it is understood as a genre of national oral tradition, as a first-person narration of the events of the past and present which claims to be truthful. Secondly, the concept of skaz is connected to specific way of narration, such as, for example, Pavel Bazhov’sskazes [6, P. 7]. Thirdly, skaz can be seen as a way of narration with a specific style of a storyteller’s speech in his own unique manner. The skaz narration is characterized by the use of the colloquialisms, dialect words, spontaneity of speech, incomplete sentences.

The purpose of the article is to indicate the reversion of the 1920s literary tendencies in the works of the so-called «second-tier writer» – one of the authors who was not highly acclaimed by the critics or well-known by the public at the time –Mikhail Tchernokov. We attempt to analyze the specific features of his tale narration in the novel «The life of VaskaZmiev».

Up to now, literary critics have not paid attention to skaz narration in the Northern Russian literature, the only exception being Pisakhov's and Shergin's novels. The significance of the article is in an attempt of bringing an interest of the research to Mikhail Tchernokov, including the research of skaz manner of narration in the author's works.

The first attempt to systematically analyze skaz as a way of narration and describe different types of tales was carried out by the formalists in the early 1920s. In his programme article «Leskov and the Contemporary Prose» (1925) B. Eihenbaum defined «ornamental, styled»skaz. «This ornamental skaz has little in common with the oral narration and is becoming for a certain period of time a rather widely spread form of narration. It keeps track of the folklore basis and tale intonation» [10, P. 222].

M.Bakhtin and V.Vinogradov, also representing the formalists' school, point out another specific feature of the skaz – it is its theatricality – in addition to the Eikhenbaum's description. Vinogradov considers a writer's right for the impersonation in his prose. The author changes different narration masks throughout his composition[2, P. 53]. Having analyzed skaz narration, the representatives of the formalist school start to distinguish the so-called«linguistic» and «plot» ornamentality, whereas M. Bakhtin identifies «reality event» and «narration event» [1, P.39].

Skaz researchers point out that it was not only the writers’ desire to let a man from the people speak for himself that provided the rise of the genre. Skaz also flourished due to the determination to renew the language. Boris Eikhenbaum described the main problem of the 1920s prose as a shift of the attention from the plot to the words, the speech itself: «withdrawal from the written and print culture traditions and the return to the living spoken language, with no connection to which the existence and evolution of the narrative prose can only be contingent and temporary» [10, P. 214-215].

Contemporary researchers: V. Schmidt, E.G. Muschenko, V.P. Skobelev, L.E. Croichik, setting together formalists’ (Vinogradov’s and Bakhtin’s) approaches, research skaz in terms of narratology. The specific features of the skaz are its narrative character (the accent on the storyteller as the source of the speech and his unique manner), oral quality, spontaneous, and its spoken, dialogical character. The narrator, at the same time, acts as a fictitious substitute of the author[5, P.23]. He is not just telling the story but improvising, recreating the events he witnessed or took part in his own words from his own point of view, his perception of the world and his cultural level. In his narratology, Wolf Schmidt defines two types of skaz:

1. typical skaz: motivated by the storyteller’s image, whose point of view rules the whole narration.
2. ornamental skaz: reflects not the individual storyteller image, but the whole range of voices and characters, without referring to any personal narrative instance.

Only the first «classic» type can be accurately described, while the second one exists as a range of various deviations resulting from the imposition of the ornamental texture and the narration [9, P. 191].

To sum up, we can say that the tale was examined in the Soviet and Russian literature of the 20th century mostly in terms of narration, typology and relationship between the author and the narrator. At present, the researchers are focusing on the development of the skaz type of narration in regional literature: Northern, Siberian, Ural, etc.

Methods

Study design

The main objective of this article is to consider how the literary tendencies of the skaz narration prevailing in the 1920–1930s influenced the creative work of the “second-tier author” Northern writer Mikhail Tchernokov. For this purpose, we are planning to fulfil the following tasks:

• to analyze the author's biography to understand the context of his work and the level of his inclusion in the major literary process of the time;
• to undertake a philological review of the novel «The Life of VaskaZmiev» being a vivid example of the skaz narration;
• to identify the signs of the formal tale in the Tchernokov's novel and to specify the author's unique traits in the text.

Material

The object of the research is a novel «The Life of VaskaZmiev», written in 1931. It can certainly be seen as a response to the literary and social changes of that time. The language of the novel is very expressive, it combines the specific features of the Northern Russian speech and the author's unique manner. The novel depicts historic events that shocked the Russian North as well as the whole country: The Civil War and Foreign Intervention in the Arkhangelsk region. The main character, Vaska, becomes one of the most striking literary characters, such as the characters created by Nikolai Leskov, Mikhail Zoschenko, Boris Shergin, Charles De Coster, etc.

Research limitations

It must be noted that the philological concept of skaz has several meanings. Therefore, we should point out that this study shows specific features of the tale narration based on the example of one certain novel. Speaking of the Tchernokov's literary heritage, we must note that his text corpus is not that big: three novels and just over a dozen of short stories. Skaz narration is not the main feature of his poetics. To analyze and understand Tchernokov'spoetics, one should pay attention to his other texts.

Results and Discussion

Biographical notes about Mikhail Tchernokov

Mikhail Tchernokov’s name was brought back into the Russian and Soviet literature recently. Having observed the life of the writer and his works, one can note that a series of unfortunate circumstances led to him being forgotten in the literary world. Tchernokov’s texts were frequently published in the 1930s, but later he was increasingly criticized that he had not sufficiently condemned the «bloody» pre-revolutionary and failed to include proper ideological evaluations to his works. The writer presumably died of hunger in Vologda, on his way to the Arkhangelsk region. He did not leave any heir who could have preserved and publish his works. It is very important to understand the historical and cultural significance of the «forgotten» pieces and the place they take in the literary process of their time. Tynyanov in his discussion on the history of the Russian literature warned us about the danger of studying only the «main, but stand-alone» artistic phenomena, the consequence of which is turning the history of literature into the «history of the generals» [7, P. 270].

Narrative specifics of the work «The life of VaskaZmiev»

Tchernokov’s novel «The life of VaskaZmiev», written in 1931, can certainly be called a response to the country’s literary and social change. But we cannot say that it is a result of the ostentatious innovation and deliberate theatricalization of the narration. Mikhail Tchernokov wrote in the line of the realistic tradition, but at the same time he felt the rhythm of the time and depicted it in his prose. The novel is written from the perspective of VaskaZmiev, who tells the story of his life. The narrator is a young man, a son of a blacksmith from the Bolshie Luga («Large meadows») village, who graduated from the Kargopol district school. All Vaska’s descriptions in the novel are given by himself. In chapter 3, Vaska, looking at himself in the mirror, draws his portrait: «I had a rather remarkable appearance: a long pale face with a small beard, big forehead and a severe look. In short, it was not a thin face» [8, P. 121].

The narrator is from a Northern Russian village, he is a mischievous, vivid man soon turning 30. The main character of the novel embodies the traits of a certain social and historic type: a Northern peasant who took part in the First World War, freeing the Russian North from the invaders, and who relied on the new authorities. He is one of the many folklore and literary embodiment of the trickster archetype. Vaska stands in line with such characters as Ivan Flyagin, master Tychka, Shish of Moscow, NazarSinebryukhov, Till Ulenspiegel. VaskaZmiev is close to the characters of the «soldier tales»: lucky, slicky, who is able to trick the devil, cook porridge of an axe, marry a princess etc. His motives are far from the motives of other Civil War heroes depicted by Serafimovich, Lavrenev, Ivanov. Love affairs, attraction to people, longing to understand the reasons of their doings, their personalities – this is Vaska’s driving force to say it in his own words. Vaska does not dwell on one attachment, he flits from one woman to another, he gets along with people and easily leaves them behind. The character does not tend to suffer or reflect. In the first chapter he begins to mourn by recalling his friends, who had been killed, and at the same moment he focuses his attention on Ulyana, the girl that the locals propose to him as a bride. Despite his military biography, career at the factory and nomadic way of life, Vaska is really close to nature: he compares himself to a lark, a falcon, he is longing to walk in the forest, lay back in the moss, look at the sky.

According to the Wolf Schmidt’s classification, we can refer «The Life VaskaZmiev» to the first type of skaz, which results from the narrator’s image. The character’s point of view influences the whole story, the reader follows the teller through his narrative optics. Tchernokov’s novel and its character are rather typical for the early Soviet literature. As Elena Galimova puts it in the opening article of the author’s collection of selected works: «The writer endeavoured to show how people, the peasantry, conducted the search of the new life forms, social structure, ways of economic management. To show the vivid and creative character of this search» [4, P. 9].

The main hero of the work «The life of VaskaZmiev»

As many of his literary and folklore predecessors, Vaska is on a constant journey, which sometimes turns into a flee. The narrator is moving through the vast territories of the Russian North, taking part in the real historical events: Arkhangelsk White Army Regiment’s uprising on the December 11th 1918 and its cruel suppression following fighting on the Onega river. Following Vaska the reader is able to see not only the life of one village, but of a vast territory, the reader meets different people and all this gives an opportunity for various adventures. The plot of the novel is based on the journey's motive, a road trip, the character’s instant movement. Unlike the fairy-tale characters, Vaska travels around his native land, Onega region, but not in the mysterious magic lands. However, taking into account the geographic and historical circumstances, we must admit that some villages are alien to our hero.

One more specific trait of the skaz plot is its theatrical quality: dressing-up motive, the main character’s change of dress. From the very first scenes we observe a number of comic situations deriving from the Vaska’s carnival wearing the priest’s clothes, stealing the Bible and escaping the enemies. A light, adventurous shade of the narration emerges at that point. All this happening in spite of the fact that Vaska is escaping from the mortal danger after hearing the news about his friends’ death. He himself was close to death: «the death tried to catch him, wove him to the earth» [8, P. 115].

At the beginning of the novel, the narrator declares that he is creating the story of his life, and he speaks to his reader. The language of the novel tends to recreate peculiarities of the language spoken by an ignorant, uneducated person. It seems as if there is no author, as if the character speaks directly to the reader (audience). The author steps back to the background, pushing the character forward. The novel starts with the main character's direct speech. The narrator defines the frame of the story: he decides where to start and where to end it, he does not have to respect the time sequence. The logic of the narrator defines the plot of the story. The author's aim is to depict the territory and the time period as it is perceived by a man from the people, one of the folk.

The narrator does not try to create his story in some special literary style or to look like a real professional writer. It looks like the author emphasizes the non-literary character of the narrator’s language. The literary character of the narration in skaz is broken by the irregularities used to verify the linguistic reality. Those irregularities include colloquialisms, dialects, barbarisms – all those phenomena break the neutrality of the narration and make an impression that the story is being told by a certain person.

Tchernokov`s novel, as well as many other skaz texts, to some extent blends folklore and Christian literature. «The Life of VaskaZmiev» is written in a lively language, combining peculiarities both of the author's manner and of the Northern Russia language. The text seamlessly integrates small folklore forms. Each chapter is opened by an epigraph taken from the folk sayings: «You should bend something just to bend, not to break»; «Judge the flock by its priest» [8, P. 115-119]. Fairy-tales repeatedly appear in the text (men from the Kozhozero lake tell them to each other in the evenings) and magical images within the narration like a leshii (silvan) – a mythical forest creature; ceremonial songs are sung at the wedding, even though it is held «in a new way – without the church rituals» [8, P. 153].

Thus, having analyzed the narration poetics, we can conclude that «The Life of VaskaZmiev» bears the quality of an individual type of skaz belonging to this specific author. The specific features of the Tchernokov’sskaz narrative poetics define the general development of the literary process, as well as the author’s creative traits.

Conclusion

Summarizing the results of the analysis of the poetics of skaz narration in the novel «The life of VaskaZmiev», one can point out the following specific traits.

Mikhail Tchernokov’s creative work in general and «The Life of VaskaZmiev» in particular reflect the main narrative tendencies of the literature of that time. Firstly, it is the discourse of «the man of the people»- one of the folk – which is taking the most prominent place. Secondly, the voice of the character/storyteller sounds louder in the text than the author’s presence. The main character, being the storyteller at the same time, continues the folkloric and literary traditions of the trickster characters. And thirdly, the reader sees the certain period of time, The Civil War and Intervention, through the eyes of the character. The study of Tchernokov’s narrative poetics provides new opportunities for the analysis and the return of his works to the Northern text of the Russian literature.

Конфликт интересов Не указан.

Conflict of Interest None declared.

 

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