The uncanny in bazhov’s tales
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2014.2.051Keywords:
20th century Russian literature; Soviet society; S. Freud; P. P. Bazhov; Malachite Casket; motif analysisAbstract
P. P. Bazhov’s tales are considered through the prism of S. Freud’s theory of the uncanny (Unheimlich). The analysis focuses on the previously unstudied motifs of death and sexuality in the tales and connects the inner atmosphere of Malachite Casket with the atmosphere of fear and terror, which accompanied the creation of tales, as well as substantiates the new interpretation of The Mistress of the Copper Mountain as an alternative to the nationalism of Stalin’s epoch. The phantasm of escape, clearly present in the tales, corresponds to the situation of escape from Soviet history. The elimination of historical traumas by means of sinister images connects Bazhov’s creative work to magical historism (A. Etkind). Bazhov’s tales were at once frightening for the Soviet reader, as they told of death, fatal temptation and paralyzing impotence in one’s hometown, but also soothing, since they made it possible to articulate the trauma resulting from the historical loss of local culture and the fear of grand motherland. Thus, Bazhov’s tales resonated within the Soviet individual and the collective unconscious. This can explain the success of Malachite Casket with generations of Soviet people and the tale’s cultural untranslatability.
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