Folklore Elements as Signs of Mythological Reality in the Novel by Andrei Dmitriev The Peasant and the Teenager

The aim of the article is to analyze functional features of folk-mythological elements in Andrei Dmitriev's novel The Peasant and the Teenager. Folklore and mythological borrowings and projections are manifested in the motive structure of the novel in the protagonists' images. Thus, they form the conceptual and thematic multilayered narrative structures, with clearly distinguished household, psychological, folklore-mythological, and metaphysical layers. The folklore-mythological level of the text, actualizing people's cultural memory resources, helps the writer to show deep processes and mechanisms of human spiritual life, to comprehend the viability of the national-historical paradigm in the light of global sociopolitical and cultural changes taking place in the country. The writer actively uses oral and poetic material of different genres (folk legends, lamentations for the dead, oral stories), as well as elements of folk culture (features of communication, village etiquette, ethnographic sketches). All of them are tools for mythologiz-ing the reality, for they return us to myth and archetype as spiritual sources, primary meanings which give the opportunity to gain national identity. The system of archetypes embodied in the images of the protagonists-Panyukov, Gera, Sanyushka, veterinarian, Tatyana-plays an important role in understanding the implicit meanings of the novel. Their archetypal semantics explicates the author's dialogue with the texts of classical Russian literature, allows expressing one of the key oppositions of the Russian cultural consciousness related to the ideas of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In this dialogue lies the key to the interpretation of the title of the work. The identification of archetypal meanings also helps to interpret more objectively the behavioral characteristics of the characters, the motives of their actions, their internal states. Finally, the use of archetypal and mythological material sets the stage for the development of the metaphysical layer of the narrative. The metaphysical level is expressed with the help of complex cultural associations, which encourage the reader to have a dialogue with the author, the characters, the history and culture of their country, which is at the break of epochs. In addition, this level is important for an understanding of Dmitriev's creative laboratory, his creative talent, the originality of his style. Metaphysics is primarily associated with the image of Gera, revealing the secrets of the universe and experiencing, as a result, complex spiritual transformations: love, death, collapse of ideals, finding the meaning of life, choice of the life path. The study shows that the folklore-mythological borrowings and projections in Dmitriev's novel perform important conceptual and compositional functions, determine the stylistic image of the work, and open prospects for further study of the phenomenon of folkrorism in modern Russian realistic prose.

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