Metanoia of Daniil Kharms: A Transition From Cosmogono-Eschatological to Christian Myth and Rejection of the Avant-Garde

The article focuses on Daniil Kharms’ refusal from the avant-garde, the artistic language of which has become inadequate for expressing Kharms’s changed values. The author draws on the concepts of myth and archetype to describe this transition. The concept of archetype makes it possible to focus on values of Kharms’ works, since archetype is associated with the axiology of human thinking. The concepts of myth and archetype are considered both in a comparative historical interpretation and in the context of works on the nature of mythological thinking. The following works by Kharms serve as material for the study: the dramas The Comedy of the City of Petersburg (1927) and Elizaveta Bam (1927) become an example of how the cosmogo-noeschatological archetype is expressed in Kharms’s work, and The Old Woman (1939) is an example of how Christian archetype is expressed. According to the analysis, the cosmogonoeschatological myth in Kharms’s early works acts through the mythologemes of the creation and destruction of the myth and is associated with avant-grade type of thinking. However, The Old Woman is based on the mythological images associated with the values of Christian thinking - the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The article shows that the expression of archetypes in different stages of Kharms’s work correlates with different concepts of myth and mythological thinking, which is demonstrated on the basis of differences in the implementation of the key mythical category - a miracle. At an early stage, when the cosmogonoeschato-logical archetype underlies Kharms’s thinking, the expression of this archetype correlates with Yakov Golosovker’s concept, according to which the miracle is determined by the impact of “absolute freedom and the power of desire” on reality. At this stage, the miracle implies various changes in reality caused by the desire of Kharms’ characters. At a later stage, the functioning of the miracle is associated with the incarnation of Christian mythology, close to Aleksey Losev’s “myth as a wonderful personal story”, most fully embodied in the mythologeme of the meeting. As a result, the miracle is now the moment when the narrator meets God and gains saving faith. Finally, the author explains that Kharms rejected the avant-garde, since his values and existential self-awareness change after the religious conversion and transition to a different type of thinking, unusual for the avant-garde. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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