The dialogue of generations and the theme of memory in Yuri Yakovlev’s stories about the Great Patriotic war
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2023-6-132-142
The focus of our attention is on the works of Yu. Ya. Yakovlev, which are in demand in school literary studies, have educational potential, but are insufficiently studied by literary critics. A review of articles devoted to the writer’s stories about the Great Patriotic War allows us to highlight their common features: central are the motif of memory and the technique of retrospection, providing a “link” of two time layers – the 1940s and the present (for the characters); the importance of dialogues of characters of different generations, attention to the inner world of characters. The article explores the theme of memory and the peculiarity of intergenerational dialogue in the works of Yuri Yakovlev of the 1970s, dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. The literary material (“Girls from Vasilievsky Island”, “Memory”) is interpreted based on the structural-semiotic research method. The writer uses a number artistic techniques: retrospection, the juxtaposition of two space-time planes (war and modernity), in the center – a pair of characters “child-adult” or “child-child”, the first represents the post-war generation and is the bearer of knowledge about the war or initiates the acquisition of this knowledge, and the second - having direct experience wars/blockades. Yu. Yakovlev reveals the idea of spiritual kinship, the unbreakable bond of the front-line and post-war generations. In order for the deceased to continue to live in the memory of their spiritual descendants, personal efforts, work and courage are needed to preserve knowledge about the war, loyalty to friendship. The analysis of the stories makes it clear that the writer inherits some features of the “lieutenant’s prose” (laconism of narration, attention to the inner world of the character, reliance on documentalism, a combination of lyricism, psychologism and naturalism). At the same time, there are differences due to the time of the creation of texts – the 1970s. The depiction of the events of the 1940s is mediated by the consciousness and imagination of the characters-children born after the war, which means they cannot be direct witnesses or bearers of military experience. This feature allows you to interpret the stories of Yu. Yakovlev in the context of the concept of “post-memory”, justified by M. Hirsch.
Keywords: literature for children, Yu. Yakovlev, the Great Patriotic war, the theme of national memory, recollections, communication of generations
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Issue: 6, 2023
Series of issue: Issue 6
Rubric: RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND LITERATURE OF THE PEOPLES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Pages: 132 — 142
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