Genre Peculiarities of the Small Forms of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Prose (Krokhotki, 1958-1963, 1996-1999)

The article analyzes the genre peculiarities of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's (1918-2008) Krokhotki (“Miniatures”) of 1958-63, 1996-99, their special place in his affirmation of a deeply ethical and religious image of the world. The author discusses the existing definitions of the genre of the miniatures, and distinguishes three different tendencies: some scholars define Krokhotki as prose poems, lyrical sketches including elements of realistic narrative; some as realistic narrative stories with elements of lyricism; others as collections of pieces belonging to different genres. The author questions these approaches, particularly the approach of those Russian and foreign literary critics who think that Krokhotki are a series of prose poems, and draws attention to the fact that this point of view was misleading for American translators who substituted the random definition of the genre for the title of the work: in English Krokhotki became “Prose Poems”. The author believes that in Krokhotki Solzhenitsyn turns to the traditional form of the parable. To prove this point the author draws on the theoretical approaches to the parable as a peculiar form of discourse that goes back in its origin to the genres of oral speech and has a long literary history. The author defines Krokhotki as narrative parables. The distinctive traits of the genre are brevity and conciseness (a condensed plot, condensed images of characters), metaphoric structure and didactic design. The analysis shows that all these qualities are characteristic of both cycles of Solzhenitsyn's Krokhotki. The article emphasizes that Solzhenitsyn uses the traditional parable and at the same time transforms the genre. The author offers an analysis of the narrative strategies used by Solzhenitsyn in the two cycles of Krokhotki and comes to the conclusion that Solzhenitsyn's innovative approach was fruitful, for it does not contradict inwardly the original model of the genre. Since the major aim of the parable is to instruct and persuade, it has genetically a built-in lyrical didactic potential; Solzhenitsyn emphasizes the lyrical self and the emotional appeal to the reader; he often departs from the monologue of the traditional parabolic discourse and its hierarchical relationship between the instructor and the instructed, includes elements of a dialogical discourse. Developing the qualities of the traditional parable, Solzhenitsyn draws typical, realistic pictures from Russian history and contemporary life in which the reader can recognize their own experience and thus exercise their moral choice, which the parable as a genre presupposes. Moreover, the article demonstrates that the two cycles of Krokhotki in their composition are built on the principle of the so-called parabolic narrative development (a curve of analogies and contrasts that is characteristic of parabolic discourse); within the general design and conception of the two cycles the metaphoric and symbolic lines receive a fuller expression and each individual short parable acquires a deeper meaning; the two cycles are also interconnected through key images and metaphors. The author points out that in the 20th century the genre of parable attracted many distinguished writers (Kafka, Camus, Faulkner, Hemingway, Brecht, and others); Solzhenitsyn's Krokhotki are an important contribution to this general trend.

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