“Epistolary Diary” of a Writer and a Contemporary Addressee (Viktor Astafiev's I Have No Answer...)

The aim of the article is to study the writer's publishing diary as an ego-document, as a specific form of a written self-expression, which is a special genre of non-fiction literature. The material of the study was Viktor Astafiev's I Have No Answer... epistolary diary. The analysis of the text was based on the theory of communication involving structural, descriptive and functional research methods. The course of the study is determined by its logic: the introductory part is theoretical; then the history of the book's creation is considered; the writer's circle is revealed; letters are analyzed in terms of distinctive signs related to the nature of the relationship (family, friendly, professional, business, etc.) between the author and the addressee, the degree of openness (sincerity, intimacy) of self-expression in presenting facts of personal life, in expressing feelings (depending on the addressee of the message), problems discussed. Then the main plot-forming lines are described. Astafiev's collection of letters in the form of an epistolary diary is considered as a synthetic formation, the genre of which is determined by the synthesis of the properties of the epistolary and diary discourses. Conclusions of the study are the following: (1) The synthesis of epistolary and diary discourses in the book I Have No Answer... is expressed in the organization of the text in the form of an I-statement addressed to the Other - the contemporary addressee; in the self-presentation of the narrator in the form of self-characteristics and intentions of a confessional nature, in the autobiographical perspective of a publisher's diary, in the dating of letters arranged sequentially in chronological order. (2) The structure of the epistolary diary is discrete; therefore, the main plot lines in the text are: the creative process (the history of the creation and publication of works, etc.), the literary process (participation, relations with writers, perception and evaluation of current literature), autobiography and personal life. (3) Thanks to the author's communication with the addressees and a certain addressing, he is revealed in the epistolary diary in a multifaceted manner, in the dynamics of the formation of the creative individuality and personality of the writer, with his joys and sorrows, successes and failures, with human, creative, friendly, family ties, in a dialogue with the Other - the contemporary addressee. The position of the narrator in the epistolary diary, in comparison with the classic writer's diary, turns out to be more flexible and is expressed in many facets, which is determined by the specifics of the author's communication with a certain addressee of the message. (4) The scientific value of the epistolary diary is determined by the fact that it is a part of the author's creative biography, evidence of his life, a kind of document of his literary “behaviour”. The writer corresponded with different addressees throughout his creative life, and the letters compiled together acquired a new form of non-fiction literature -a publisher's diary that allowed the author of the letters to capture the life of the spirit against the background of historical reality of the second half of the twentieth century.

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