Cultural features of the traditional worldview of Komi: mythopoetics in the artistic view of G. A. Yushkov and I. G. Toropov

Abstract

Introduction. The article deals with the content and semantic potential of the embodiment of the theme of nature which acquires the character of a mythologeme. It is the key in the motive-plot complex of the texts by G. A. Yushkov and I. G. Toropov, the leading prose writers of Komi of the turn of the XX–XXI centuries. Materials and Methods. The material for the study was the prose by G. A. Yushkov and I. G. Toropov. The authors employ such research methods as historical and literary, comparative, typological. Results and Discussion. In the work of Komi writers there are tendencies towards mythologization, which in general was typical for developing literatures and early written languages of the 1960s–1980s. This is probably due to the desire to monumentalize the traditional worldview, to emphasize the “irregularity” of modern development, which was the characteristics of the works by Yu. Shestalov, V. Sangi, A. Kim, Ch. Aitmatov. Conclusion. The artistic prose of the second half of the XX century offers to look at the cultural features of the traditional worldview of Komi as part of the history of literature and to discover the patterns of mythological images, plots and motifs determined by the era, direction, individual style of writers. Keywords: Komi national character, worldview of the Komi ethnos, mythologization of nature, pagan epoch, traditional worldview