“The soft flesh of the labor land”: Genre specificity of “Ode to the Russian vegetable garden” V. Astafyev
- Authors: Goncharov P.A.1
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Affiliations:
- Michurinsk State Agrarian University
- Issue: Vol 11, No 2 (2025)
- Pages: 320-334
- Section: LITERATURE MAP IN PERSONS, FACTS, EVENTS
- URL: https://journal-vniispk.ru/2587-6953/article/view/297436
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.20310/2587-6953-2025-11-2-320-334
- ID: 297436
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION. The aim of the work is to determine the genre-generic and compositional originality of the “Ode to the Russian Vegetable Garden” – one of the most striking and original works of V. Astafyev – in comparison with other works of the Russian prose writer and his contemporaries.
MATERIALS AND METHODS. As materials for the study we took the most authoritative literary works on the novelist’s work, texts of Astafyev’s works of 1960-1990s, which need to be clarified and defined in their generic and genre-compositional specificity by methods of comparison and structural analysis.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The result of the study is the conclusion substantiated by the structural analysis of the work, confirmed by numerous references to the text of “Ode to the Russian vegetable garden”, that Astafyev’s “Ode”, being a phenomenon, universal in problem and theme terms, demonstrates a close connection of V.P. Astafyev’s creativity with “Village prose”. “Ode to the Russian Vegetable Garden” turns out to be a deeply original, traditional and synthetic phenomenon in generic and genre-compositional terms. A significant mythopoetic component of the “Ode” is defined and interpreted; the influence of fairy-tale, “Raeshny” and other folklore traditions in Astafyev’s “Ode” is commented on. The influence of literary traditions of the past and the context of Russian literature of the 1960–1990s as a whole on the structure of Astafyev’s work is characterized. The strong rootedness of the central image of the “Ode to the Russian Vegetable Garden” in the mature and late works of the writer is noted.
CONCLUSION. The article proves that the «Ode to a Russian Vegetable Garden» synthesizes the formal and substantive properties of the epic and lyric poetry, elements of an ode, hymn, idyllic, pastoral, bucolic and other genre varieties of lyric poetry with a prose narrative form, with “Raeshny” verse, with a fairy tale, with parody and its various comic techniques. The techniques and elements of the poetics of the ridiculous used by V. Astafyev are characterized and analyzed.
About the authors
P. A. Goncharov
Michurinsk State Agrarian University
Author for correspondence.
Email: goncharovpa2015@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5063-9564
Dr. Sci. (Philology), Professor, Professor of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines Department
Russian Federation, 393760, Российская Федерация, Тамбовская область, г. Мичуринск, ул. Интернациональная, 101References
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