Hypostases of artistic space: nostalgiaand imagination (on the example of the story "Kabala" by A. Potyomkin)

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Hypostases of artistic space: nostalgiaand imagination (on the example of the story «Kabala» by A. Potyomkin)

Leslava Korenovska,

doctor of philological Sciences, full professor

The Pedagogical University of Krakow

Художественное пространство, представленное в повести «Кабала» А. Потемкина, можно рассматривать в разных ипостасях. В статье проанализированы реальное, эфирное и больное пространства воображения главного героя, пристрастившегося к опиуму. Воображение Парфирчикова тесно связано с ностальгией, которая проявляется в побеге из реального мира в мир мечты. Каждое преобразование внутреннего мира героя и перемещение его из одного пространства в другое наступает после приема дозы наркотического препарата.

Ключевые слова: ипостась, художественное пространство, внутренний мир, ностальгия, воображение.

artistic spacestory рotyomkin

Художній простір, представлений у повісті «Кабала» О. Потьомкіна, можна розглядати в різних іпостасях. У статті проаналізовано реальне, ефірне та хворе як простори уяви головного героя, який захопився опіумом, розглянуто іпостасі художнього простору в повісті. Концепти ностальгії та уяви сприяють розкриттю імпліцованих сенсів художнього світу повісті. Уява Парфірчикова тісно пов'язана з ностальгією, яка проявляється як втеча від реального світу у світ мрії. Про- стежено як кожне перетворення внутрішнього світу героя та переміщення його з одного простору в інший настає після прийому дози наркотичного препарату.

Представлено дослідницьку гіпотезу, що повість «Кабала» -- це цікавий жанровий експеримент, що тяжіє до психологічної прози, трохи до пригодницької та в деякій мірі до фантастики, маркованої як повість «для самого себе». Розглянуто яким чином головний герой повісті Петро Петрович Парфірчиков представлений в декількох просторових вимірах. Проаналізовано текстуальну фактуру повісті «Кабала», яка відтворює потік свідомості молодої людини, що перебуває у трансі внаслідок опіумного сп'яніння, а також його ідейні суперечки з подібними до нього персонажами. Ностальгія та уява є цементуючими елементами в просторовій структурі розглянутого твору. Ностальгічний настрій народжує потужні імпульси, здатні привести в рух уяву, яка, у свою чергу, ма-лює різні іпостасі простору. Письменник виступає в декількох ролях: філософ, психолог, етнолог, соціолог. Проблеми, що постали в повісті «Кабала» О. По- тьомкіна підтверджують думку про те, що людські пристрасті, бажання, прагнення знаходяться поза часом та поза простором. Ностальгія та уява -- дві потужні сили, здатні розбурхувати розум й почуття людини, впливати на стан свідомості та змінювати його.

Ключові слова: іпостась, художній простір, внутрішній світ, ностальгія, уява.

Artistic space, presented in the story «Kabala» by A. Potyomkin, can be seen in various hypostases. The real, ethereal and ill-fated areas of the imagination of the main character connects with his opium dependence. Parfirchikov's imagination is tightly connected with nostalgia, which manifests itself in the escape from the real world into the dreamed space of his inner world. Every character's transformation from one space into another takes place after the dose of drug is taken by him.

Key words: hypostases, artistic space, inner world, nostalgia, imagination.

Art space in the literary work has always occupied and still occupies one of the important places in literary criticism. This phenomenon is devoted to the research of such scientists as D. Likhachev, U. Lotman, A. Esin, E. Et- kind, V. Savelyev, J. Pykhtina and many others. It should be noted that space as a background for the unfolding of plot events, as the subject organization of the text, as the inner (psychological and speech) world of the character, and also as the language of the artistic space are described quite widely and extensively [2, 3, 5, 6, 8]. However, the space of the character's inner structure, which is based on motives or impulses that motivate the character to this or that action, to «voice» an internal monologue, to explicate observations of the surrounding nature or reasonings of a philosophical, moral or everyday nature, is, as it turned out, not so a lot of work.

Before we go on to consider the hypostases of the artistic space on the example of the story of «Kabala» written by A. Potemkin, we will concentrate on such concepts as nostalgia and imagination and try to disclose the meaning implicit in their content. Nostalgia (from gr. nostos -- return, al- gia -- pain) became an excellent definition for the wave of melancholy, anorexia and suicides that appeared in the 19th century. In «Slownik poprawnej polszczyzny» this term was defined as a yearning for home, motherland; pain that appears during a long stay in a foreign land; desire to return to their native land as soon as possible [9, p. 522]. The fact that researchers began

to describe this phenomenon proves that a new way of experiencing has appeared in the world or a new way of thinking about the existing experience, which, in turn, attests to the connection between nostalgia and modernity. It is important to note that with the spread of this term, its meaning has significantly changed. In the nineteenth century, under the influence of Romanticism, the transition from the use of «nostalgia» as a term describing physiological ailments to the designation of the mental state of an individual suffering from depression that associated with the abandonment of the native land or the temporary length of stay in a foreign land. Nostalgia began to acquire not only a spatial dimension, but also a temporal one. The next stage in the evolution of the meaning of this term was his transition from the problems of the unit to the «disease of society» [12, p. 23]. Despite the fact that the term «nostalgia» left the medical field, it was followed by a negative attitude towards each disease, including a pathology which requires an intervention. In addition, nostalgia was viewed as a regressive, irrational phenomenon, on which the following components were superimposed: falsification of history, manifestations of sentimentalism, lack of objectivity and distrust of one's own experience. Nostalgia is beginning to be used for the description of social groups that are poorly assimilated in an ever-changing world; it becomes, in the opinion of Marcus Natali, the definition of those who have become marginalized in the present [10, p. 18]. Currently, the well-known critic of this phenomenon is Susan Stewart, who views nostalgia as a flight from reality to an imaginary idealized past -- a past that did not exist in a different form than narration. The past is absent, and this means that «the point of desire for nostalgia is emptiness, which in reality is the mechanism that generates desire, i.e. nostalgia becomes the desire of desire itself» [12, p. 23]. However, recently many critics consider this approach to be too simplistic, therefore the thesis of «a lot of nostalgia» is put forward, which makes it possible to judge the possibility of the existence of positive dimensions of nostalgia [12, p. 20]. Svetlana Boym believes that nostalgia can become an appeal to the past, in which the reason for giving up reality is seen. The subject of longing is the lost life stability, the slow pace of time, not accelerated by the excess of information coming from different parts of the world, in other words, all that modernity prohibits. On the one hand, it can be argued that nostalgia «is not an enemy of modernity, but only its integral part» [1, p. 299]. On the other hand, it is a phenomenon of the «volatility and unreachable» nostos -- the object of melancholy, a metaphorical house that has ceased to exist, and maybe never existed. If algia -- pain -- bears the connecting potential, then nostos just divides the people, who possessed melancholy, on their own and others', according to the idea of the lost object. Nostalgia became the definition not only of anguish for the past, which did not take place, but also along the parallel roads of the life choice, the unrealized opportunities that, as a result of our decisions, regardless of the course of history, have become the criterion of a consistent inclination [1, p. 303]. British researchers Mikael Pickering and Emily Keitley suggest that the recognition of this phenomenon as an opposition to progress has become «its identification with an orientation toward the past, with a defectistical attitude toward reality and the future, with the desire to achieve unattainable, with satisfaction unsatisfied» [11, p. 920]. This approach solves the problem of authentic dissatisfaction and regret about the changes that time has brought, but also ignores the possibility of active cooperation of the past with the present and the future. Hence the conclusion suggests that there is a need to change the view, in which nostalgia is presented only as an element of an amnesic culture, manifested in such mass trends as superficial style, stereotype, kitsch; there was a need to search for different types of nostalgia relationship to the past, the types of cooperation with it, and access to new characteristics of this phenomenon related to the mental state of a person [11, p. 924].

Why nostalgia can be put on a par with the imagination (as well as with melancholy)? Undoubtedly, imagination is an integral part of the ontology of nostalgia, because this term has the ability to create certain images, ideas, some ideas and artfully manipulates them. Imagination plays a dominant role in such psychological processes as creativity, visualization, modeling, memory, that is, every process that takes place «in images» is taken into account [7, p. 43]. It should be added that the imagination is able to stay in three temporal dimensions, drawing in them both real and surreal images. But what unites nostalgia and imagination is the process of thinking, memory, fantasy and often the desire to create a space in which the desired and unrealizable world of comfort and joy, i.e. what is not in reality, whereby this world thanks to sharpened senses is perceived as real unlike most images and thoughts.

Try to transfer the above thoughts to concrete examples from the story of «Kabala» (2008--2009) by Alexander Potemkin with the aim of explicating the hypostasis of the artistic space in the ontological filling of nostalgia and imagination.

The story of «Kabala» is an interesting genre experiment that gravitates towards psychological prose, a little to adventure and to some extent to fantasy, labeled as a story «for oneself», whose reading arouses readers' an-ticipation of entering the intimacy of the author. The twelve-chapter motif is the world of virtuality achieved through the use of the drug. The story in most of the textual textures represents the stream of consciousness of a young man who is in a trance of opium intoxication, as well as his ideological disputes with similar individuals.

The main character of the story, Petr Petrovich Parfirchikov, is represented in several spatial dimensions. At the beginning of the story, this secured thirty-year-old man working in a prestigious Moscow office, possessing many exclusive things, attending fashion clubs, etc. A few chapters later we see a completely different Parfirchikov: an inveterate drug addict who surrendered into the hands of the poppy head. Just as a person who is on the marginalized public, Parfirchikov in his narcotic phantasmagoria draws several hypostases of space that are born in his sick imagination. The originality of these hypostases or models is manifested in a complex combination of spatial images within the framework of a textual texture and in the construction of an i-space, which is under narcotic narcotic, then in the drug starvation, and then in fleeting lumens between these two states. What unites these different kinds of space is imagination and nostalgia.

Let us trace in more detail the locuses of the «stay» of the nostalgic imagination of Petr Petrovich Parfirchikov. Observing his compatriots, one of the characters of the story, Grigory Semenovich Pomeshkin, an employee of the road agency, comes to the conclusion that it only seems that all people live in one country. «In fact, we exist on the territory of the same state, but in thousands of different worlds» [4]. The world as a space for the stay of one's own thoughts, desires, visions, illusions, needs, everyone has. Content of these imaginary spaces, allows us to judge the content of the inner world of the individual. The idea of abstracting from society, fleeing Moscow and «finding yourself in a different format» leads Parfirchikov to the town of Kan in the Krasnoyarsk. The main character defined his life aim as follows: «I wanted to be realized in restless dreams, in the games of inflamed consciousness.» Succumbing to the effects of opium, «from a miserable sickly little man Petr Petrovich turns into an active volcano of fantasy.» It turns out that a poppy head can «blind you from someone you want.» Especially brihgt pictures of redeployment in space are in front of the character on the train, which takes him to the city of his dreams and fulfills the cherished desire to grow a sea of poppy heads on a huge plot of land. On the way, Petr Petrovich gets acquainted with Professor Evgeny

Koshmarov -- «modulator of the new time». The latter opens the idea to the character of the national pill of the four nations, an ethnic cocktail capable of transforming an ordinary Russian person into a more perfect personality thanks to the «mixing ethnic compatriots into the blood of their compatriots: the ensemble of German, Chinese, Jewish and Georgian genetics.» Parfirchikov agrees to an experiment and receives an injection, after which, in his own way, begins to «observe the reality of his surreal nest.» The first model of an imaginary space, which can provisionally be called a «territorially spiritualized space», is connected with Moscow. We can see a picture of a city in which an unprecedented spiritual national upsurge is observed and «the magic mentality is forever cast off by the magic power». The main thing is not what you have, but what you think about, what the brains are engaged in, what a grandiose one is creating, what you are dreaming about inspiringly! «. The illusion of an ideal society is presented as a figment of the imagination stimulated by nanapiles. The way out of the narcotic state causes Parfirchikov «a passionate desire to move himself from reality as quickly as possible to the fantasy of a disheveled imagination.» For this, it is necessary to take a certain dose of a puppet, capable of «expanding the boundaries of consciousness». After all, it's not for nothing that the kuknari, according to the hero's opinion, is «a ticket to an imaginary world, a means capable of speeding the escape from reality.» A picture appears, representing a different hypostasis of space -- «unlimited». This time it is the aerospace salon «MAKS-2008». Parfirchikov admits: «I wanted much more -- to feel it (peace -- L. K.), reflect on it, improve it. After all, in order to sit on the poppy head, you must have a rich soul and intelligence with an ironic color. My current life is turned inwards -- to a fantastic scene of the subconscious. «The imaginary space allows Petr Petrovich to tear himself away from the surrounding reality and to move to another world, giving him unlimited possibilities of fantasy, realizing the most incredible desires, presenting himself in different roles, without any effort, conditions, responsibility, etc., that the volatilization of the rainbow state causes the hero only one need -- to take as soon as possible a teaspoon of a kuknar. The author very correctly describes the moments in which the world of the character's imagination is collapsing, i.e. the time when the drug stops. Painful dependence on narcotic means is conveyed by Parfirchikov's nostalgic confes-sion: «Imagination faded, memory ceased to throb with memories, and the mind faded. I had to refresh myself, cheer up, and stir myself up with phantasmagoria. Without poppy it is already impossible to live. Strong poppy distorts the mind, fills the chimeras with consciousness! «. Nostalgic pain and desire to return to the paradise of your imagination stimulates every step of the main character. The next hypostasis of the imaginary space of the character is a prison in which he resides as a prisoner and as the head of a penitentiary institution. We define this model as a «closed» space. His stay in the prison Petr Petrovich sums up as follows: «Eternal opium bondage». Wherever Parfirchikov's imagination could not bear, he is always under the influence of opium. Only in the state of a really accepted dose of the drug the character is able to expand the space of his imagination, drawing in it pictures of his secret desires. The next model of space -- «real» -- looms in Kan, where Peter Petrovich arrives at his permanent residence. «Everyday pictures began to take on imagination. Yesterday I worked very well. A quarter of the field was dug up and sowed with the kashka's poppy. «It seems that the character fulfilled his dream. Staying in the town gives him the opportunity to develop a fantasy world, leaving behind the threshold of consciousness a «fake world around». For Parfirchikov Kan, his poppy field, a new friend-addict Grigory Semenovich Pomeshkin become a reality, which, paradoxically, is woven from the threads of nostalgic imagination. Existence in a particular spatial locus, filled with fabulous possibilities of consuming an unlimited amount of opium, blurs the line between «the meanings of fantasy and the faded reality.» There is only the imagination space, whereby Peter Petrovich felt and experienced is so real that everything around him loses its meaning, is clothed in a narcotic dope of bliss. «Reality interferes with obsession. Ybu try to feel the surrounding world, touch it with the palm of your hand, your feet rest against the firmament, your nose absorbs amazing aromas, your eyes glide, looking for pleasant outlines, the hearing catches the caressing heart of the music of being». Minutes of Parfirchikov's oblivion are described by the author of the story very poetic and pathetically: that's how we want to sing this amazing meta-morphosis music of the character. In the sick Parfirchikov's imagination even appears completely alien to him and an unexpected desire -- to have a child with a lame saleswoman. Space, peace, reality cease to be ruled by Parfirchikov's sanity -- they are completely subject to his «poppy-agitated imagination». There is nothing surprising in the recognition of Peter Petrovich: «I swore, under no circumstances to return to reality, to remain only in the wonderful world of imagination.» Why? The answer is simple: nostalgia as a pain for the desired and lost dissolves in the imagination of Peter Petrovich, one might even say, disappears in his mind precisely because of the acquisition of happiness in the form of cherished dreams -- and all this happens after taking a dose of the kuknar. Imagination absorbs nostalgia, giving it a completely different content, which appears to the character like a new life, peace, reality. But unfortunately, too short-term happiness of oblivion. The narcotic rise of consciousness is not perceived by the character as a tragedy or as a slow death.

Summarizing, it should be noted that nostalgia and imagination are the cementing elements in the spatial structure of the considered work. Nostalgic mood gives rise to powerful impulses that can drive the imagination, which, in turn, draws different hypostases of space. The author appears here in several roles: philosopher, psychologist, ethnologist, sociologist. He very skillfully immerses the personal nature of thinking about the search for a person by himself, about the realization of his dream, about the weakness of the soul and body, about the power of imagination that makes nostalgic pain disappear, into surreal layers of the description of the life of a person who depends on the drug. Conclusions are given to readers.

The problems touched upon in the story of «Kabala» by A. Potemkin confirm the idea that human passions, desires, aspirations are often outside of time and out of space. Nostalgia and imagination are two powerful forces that can excite the mind and feelings of a person, influence the state of consciousness and change it. Back in the 1960s of the last century, there was a huge interest in the effects of drugs and hallucinogens on the human con-dition. Two scientific disciplines -- psychology and anthropology -- came very close to resolving this problem. But the fact that verbal art (literature) has also engaged in describing the different hypostases of this problem, testifies to its importance and relevance.

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