Article

Name: “To feel your destiny”: artistic creativity of Galina Kuznetsova

Authors: Marina A. Khatyamova

National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The paper analyzes the artistic work of Galina Kuznetsova through the lens of self-determination within the early Russian émigré literature. The focus is on the poetic book “Olive Garden,” the collection of short stories “Morning,” the novel “Prologue,” and “Grassky Diary.” The artistic system of Galina Kuznetsova, the author of the second row, is determined to be eclectic. Her literary heritage, rooted in the logocentrism of Russian classics and Silver Age literature, reveals a significant aesthetic influence from Bunin, particularly regarding their shared worldview – a perception of reality as a divine cosmos. Also, she was a product of her generation, marked by unique experiences and a consequent need for self-expressive writing to forge her identity and liberate her from past experiences, thereby creating a “human document” from her own life. The artistic works (poems, stories, and novel) and the “Grasse Diary” of Galina Kuznetsova formed a single text of self-definition. There, the author constructed the constants of the self-identification plot, as opposed to the plot of the self-identification crisis of the representatives of the “Paris note”: nature as cosmos, divine beauty, love and creativity, and art. The “Grasse Diary,” a compilation of chosen diary entries, constitutes the definitive work of self-reflection, distinct from autobiography or memoir. This project functions as a monument created by the author in honor of Ivan Bunin.

Keywords: literature of young immigrants, creativity of G. Kuznetsova, self-reflection, “human document”

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