Academic literature on the topic 'Mordvin Mythology'

Introduction: the article is devoted to the study of the development of books of poems as a major genre form in modern Russian-language poetry of Mordovia and fits into the complex of Russian literary studies concerning the peculiarities of the development of the Finno-Ugric literary process. In the course of the research, the typological features of a thematic and «final» book of poems are revealed; the poetological features of this genre in the works of the poets of Mordovia belonging to the «traditional» and «avant-garde» paradigm are analyzed. Objective: to analyze the main trends of the development of a book of poems in the literary process of Mordovia. Research materials: the poetry books by A. M. Sharonov «The Monologues» and S. Yu. Senichev «Grapes in Chocolate, or Compounding». Results and novelty of the research: the analysis of the modern Russian-language poetry of Mordovia has shown that today there are two ideological and artistic paradigms: «traditional» paradigm based on the experience of classical Russian poetry and «avant-garde» paradigm developing with the support of postmodern experiments. The diversity of poetic practices makes it possible to determine the ways of development of a book of poems in the poetic process of the republic. In the creative works of the poets of Mordovia two genre-specific forms, such as thematic and «final», are developing. Moreover, the traditional poets most often comprehend the problems concerning the preservation of the national identity of the Mordovian people. They poetically sum up the plots and images of national mythology and folklore. The genre form of a «final» book of poems allows the most representative to convey the scale of significant historical and sociocultural events of the era, as well as to present the author’s biography against the background of these events. The avant-garde poets, on the contrary, move away from national attributes. The associative and metaphorical principle of constructing a book of poems becomes more important for them, where along with the lyrical understanding of the world there is a philological game, intertextuality, and allusiveness. Through the techniques of literary play authors often express nostalgia for lost values. The analysis of the poetic of the books of poems by A. M. Sharonov and S. Yu. Senichev will allow not only to determine the features of their creative manner, but also to trace the ways and character of the development of modern Russianlanguage poetry in Mordovia as a whole.

The Volga Travelogue is a large layer of travel essays in the 19th-century Russian literature. This layer has not become a subject of special research in literature studies. The “journey along the Volga” is distinguished by the wide diversity of issues and themes it discusses: the economic and industrial activities of the region, its cultural and historical sights, the uniqueness of the Volga region in an ethnographic perspective – of the multifaceted “Volga region resident”. One of the structural components of the travelogue is the Volga mythology and folklore: historical-geographical and cultural-ethnic information is supplemented with legends of the ancient Volga, Russian and non- Russian (Tatar, Mordovian, German, Kalmyk) legends. Describing the “non-Russian Volga”, writers refer to the national aspects of the life of different nationalities, the most important archetypes of their consciousness. A characteristic feature of N.P. Bogolyubov’s travelogue The Volga from Tver to Astrakhan is the non-Russian word as a marker of cultural identity: it is invariably present in the description of national customs. Telling about the “Mordovian places” of the Volga region, Bogolyubov describes specific rituals associated with the birth of a baby and with burials. The Muslim as a different national and cultural tradition of the Volga region particularly attracts writers’ attention. M.I. Nevzorov, in his Journey to Kazan, Vyatka and Orenburg in 1800, tells about the spiritual and religious experience of the Tatar people: writes about the ontological constants, acquaints the reader with epigraphic culture representing Muslims’ existential ideas about people and the universe. S. Monastyrsky, in his Illustrated companion along the Volga, presents Tatar legends about the winged snake Jilantau, about the “Black Chamber” and the khan’s daughter. These legends express the religious and poetic ideas of the people. Telling about the local cultural and mythological tradition is a characteristic feature of the Russian travelogue: an autochthon is represented by its ethnocultural identity. Folklore material functions in structural parallels – multilingual sources: V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, in his travelogue The Great River: Pictures from the Life and Nature on the Volga, gives two – Russian and Mordovian – versions of the legend about “Polonyanka”, and notes the particular poetry of the non-Russian text. In the combination of various – Tatar, Russian, Kalmyk – cultural and national constants of the lower Volga. German characterology is particularly expressed. A German legend associated with biblical material about the history of the prophet Elijah’s wandering through the desert to Sarepta of Sidon is fixed in the travelogues of Ya.P. Kuchin, S. Monastyrsky, and A.P. Valueva. The legend conveys the historical “memory of the place” – the foundation of the Sarepta colony. In the travelogues of V. Sidorov, N. Bogolyubov, descriptions of Buddhist Kalmyks, with their way of life, khuruls and gelyungs, are supplemented with Kalmyk legends about the Bogdo-Ola mountain. Folklore and mythology as categories of a non-native cultural text complicate the artistic system of the travelogue and contribute to the poetic comprehension of the poly-ethnic and poly-confessional Volga region.