Magical realism traditions in the Dina Rubina’s novel “Style of Leonardo”

The material of the presented study is the novel by the modern writer Dina Rubina “Style of Leonardo”. The aim of the study is to analyze the novel in its continuity with the magical realism traditions. We define the features of magical realism in the novel: a combination of the surreal and the everyday, a mystical acceptance as a fact, complicated chronotope, prospection and retrospection, innuendo and mystery in characters description and fate, polyphonism of storytelling, mythologism, appeal to popular consciousness, existential issues and open end. Using comparative analysis we establish that this tradition is dominant in the novel. The novel “Style of Leonardo” is characterized with syncretism. We consider the “mirror” layer of the novel in detail, from the analysis of real mirrors to the principle of reflected, irrational space. We present general characters features in the novel, these unite destinies and image principles of world literature characters, traditionally regarded within the framework of magical realism. Such issues as the definition of magical realism boundaries and its features, as well as the definition of the place of Dina Rubina’s novel “Style of Leonardo” in the system of directions and trends are relevant for modern literary criticism.

Dina Rubina, “Style of Leonardo”, magical realism, poetics, mythologism, syncreticism