“Artist’s Notes” as a Form of Literary and Pictorial Self-Reflection in L. Rzhevsky’s Novel “Dina”

Abstract

Purpose. The article presents the results of a study on the plot of a letter in the novel by the writer of the second wave of Russian emigration L. Rzhevsky Dina (1979) as a literary and pictorial self-reflection of the hero. The study uses structural and intermedial analysis methods. 

Results. A hypothesis is made about the author’s tasks in the novel: on the one hand, self-disclosure of the inner world of the artist, the bearer of a picturesque vision of the world, on the other hand, “estrangement” of literary creativity by the reflection of a writing amateur. The functions of keeping notes: self-knowledge and knowledge of another, overcoming loneliness and moving towards literary creativity, reflection of one's own paintings and ideas (autoekphrasis).

It is shown that in the creative collision of the hero, the most significant is the main, unfinished picture – “The Winner” – an expression of the worldview, a sense of the integrity of the universe. The unrealized concepts are partially compensated by notes, in which different versions of the unfinished picture are recorded.

Conclusion. The novel is an expression of the author’s aesthetic position: the rejection of (post)modernism and socialist realism, which equally distort reality, and the affirmation of 20^th century realism, which seeks a spiritual vertical and is aware of the complexity and infinity of the universe, in which man is neither the owner nor the “winner”.