Functions of the Diary Chapter in Nina Berberova's Autobiography The Italics Are Mine

The diary fragment “Chernaya Tetrad'” (“Black Notebook”) is the sixth part of Nina Berberova's autobiography The Italics Are Mine. The article proves that the inclusion of war period fragments of the diary into the text is a conscious decision Berberova made for aesthetic reasons. The genre semantics of the diary reinforces the effect of authenticity of the recordings that creates the illusion of synchronism of the events described. While creating the sixth part, Berberova undoubtedly used the experience of the world's classics and of her closest predecessors (Zinaida Gippius with her Chernaya Knizhka [Black Book] (1919), a diary of the Civil War period, and Simone de Beauvoir with her diary inclusions in an autobiographical story Sila Zrelosti [The Prime of Life] (1960). The previous and the subsequent parts of The Italics Are Mine have some themes and events similar to the content of the Black Notebook. However, the events reflected twice in different ways are described in completely different ways: in detail and profoundly in the memoir part, fragmentarily and sparingly in the diary. The article analyzes the reasons for this difference. There are also themes in the Black Notebook that are not repeated in the other parts: the attitude of the French and Russian immigrants to the fascists, the spiritual opposition of the main character to the total callousness of the war period. The basis of Berberova's diary is a continuous reflection on both personal, private and general history, which she sees through the prism of literature and culture in the broadest sense of the word. The diary is the basis for the entire The Italics Are Mine. Black Notebook is a literary text that Berberova was consciously creating from a genuine diary by intertwining her personal history with the history of the humanity, the European civilization. Using the aesthetics of a post-Symbolist novel, Berberova's plot is not only the events but also their presentation. An intelligent woman overcomes her spiritual crisis provoked by the terrible time by selecting symbolic details, reflecting on quotations from books, comprehending historical parallels and by having a constant dialogue with culture. The process of thinking becomes the main support of the plot of the main character's intellectual rise to the heights of knowledge, the plot of the victory over circumstances. Black Notebook switches the reader's perception from an epic to a prosaic miniature, breaks the rhythm of the narration, establishes polysemantic links between fragmented notes and the epic whole. The diary text creates a feeling of the steps of destiny that led the author to creativity, prepares the victorious and optimistic end of the entire book.

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