Genre-style features of the writer’s memoir

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Genre-style features of the writer's memoir

Halyna Mazokha

Doctor of Phylological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Chair of Ukrainian and Foreign Literature

and Methods of Education SHEI «Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Hryhorii Skovoroda State Pedagogical University»

У статті доведено, що епістолярій активно проникає в художню прозу, причому використовують його найрізноманітніше: від цитування документальних джерел до відтворення їх в авторській інтерпретації; часто письменники вводять у розповідну канву матеріали, стилізовані під документ. Та все ж найбільш поширеним на сьогоднішній день є використання у всій повноті документальних першоджерел, які здатні відтворити той чи інший етап у житті народу, донести до читача правду про певні історичні події. Окремі явища сьогодення, як і багато подій минулого, завжди дають змогу майстру художнього слова вживати яскраві форми, користуватися домислом - життя регламентує вибір форми відображення дійсності. Про певні явища нашого дня, як і про явища вчорашнього, набагато виразніше, ніж на сторінках художнього, белетризованого твору, можна розповісти, за допомогою фактів у спогадовій літературі.

Ключові слова: лист, епістола, кореспонденція, мемуари, мемуаристика, письменник, митець, література, проза.

В статье доказано, что епистолярий активно проникает в художественную прозу, причем используют его разнообразно: от цитирования документальных источников к воспроизведению их в авторской интерпретации; часто писатели вводят в повествовательную канву материалы, стилизованные под документ. И все же наиболее распространенным на сегодняшний день является использование во всей полноте документальных первоисточников, которые способны воспроизвести тот или иной этап в жизни народа, донести до читателя правду об определенных исторических событиях. Отдельные явления настоящего, как и многие события прошлого, всегда позволяют мастеру художественного слова употреблять яркие формы, пользоваться домыслом - жизнь регламентирует выбор формы отражения действительности. Об определенных явлениях нашего дня, как и о явлениях вчерашнего, гораздо отчетливее, чем на страницах художественного, беллетризованных произведения, можно рассказать, с помощью фактов в мемуарной литературе.

Ключевые слова: письмо, эпистола, корреспонденция, мемуары, мемуаристика, писатель, художник, литература, проза.

The article proves that the epistolary actively penetrates the artistic prose, and uses it most varied: from the citation of documentary sources to reproduction of them in the author's interpretation; often writers introduce in the narrative channel materials stylized to the document. Yet the most widespread today is the full use of documentary sources that can reproduce this or that stage in the life of the people, to convey to the reader the truth about certain historical events. Separate phenomena of the present, as well as many events of the past, always allow the master of artistic words to use vivid forms, to use the idea - life regulates the choice of the form of reflection of reality. It is possible to tell about certain phenomena of our day, as well as of the events of yesterday, much more clearly than on the pages of the artistic, fictitious work, with the help of facts in the memoirs.

Special periods of rising in the development of memoir literature are peculiar for such moments, when there is a necessity to mull over the important events ofpast and nowadays. Orientation on facts lets to see objectively some difficult, sometimes even controvertial notions in the condition of reappreciation the system of moral criteria, gives the opportunity to held that was unreacheable earlier.

Literature, that is developing from the document, the fact, has the full list of qualities, that somehow coincide with the terms of rush life development - it brings inside itself a big power of the informational and recognitianal potential, it is characterized by special feature ofpsychological feature on the reader. Due to this, the researchers of the popularity of memoir literature are tend to explore it as a fully logical notion, which can mention some things, that are just appearing, that are in their dynamics. Trying to wide own opportunities, memoir literature turns in some laboratory, where the searching of new forms is gradually developing, which would coincide right, artistic analysis and depicted current proceccces.

Memoir literature is known on literary science, as a litarery fact, which contains important and specific principles for the development the literature itself, features, facetes, aspect etc. Studying the memoir literature, spreading the limits of the «literary line», helps us to distinguish different and multifacete process of selfinfluence and swlfricheness of the literature as documentary, and also as an artistic.

Key words: letter, epistol, correspondence, memoirs, memoirs, writer, artist, literature, prose.

Formulation of the problem

documentary source history memoirs

In today's conditions of national revival, caused by changes in the social and political life of the Ukrainian people, there is an urgent need for a conceptual rethinking of the historical path of our literature, its specifics and the richness of manifestations and potential opportunities. The one-sidedness of the analysis of the literary process, the dogmatism of the criteria and the bias of the assessments is overcome. The ideological multi-vector of author's worldviews can no longer remain decisive in the analysis of the writers' works of both continental Ukraine and the diaspora. Literary criticism and the history of literature do not overlook the works of any subject and genre, especially if they cause public resonance.

A steady reader's and author's interest in the works of the memoir genre, as in the «human documents» (T. Mann), proves that regardless of the time of their creation, they occupy a special place in the cultural space as a treasury of memory, a retrospective authentic knowledge of the era, events and phenomena. It is thanks to this genre that we can trace the progress of public opinion, the development of social life, to know the inner world of an individual who owns memories. Therefore, who perceives these works, it is important «to get, to go deeper into the creative core of personality» (M. Bakhtin) of its creator.

The literature on the memoir genre of Ukrainian writers became very popular. During the XX century a whole series of works of this genre appeared. Among them are: artistic memoirs and biographies, diaries, notes, letters, essays, etc. The best books of recent years have been named namely the samples of documentary and artistic prose I.Zhylenko, V.Drozd, A.Dimarov, R.Ivanychuk, Yu.Sheveliov and others. Modern literary discourse proves the spread of documentary trends on a global scale.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The study of memoirs was researched by O.Halych, M.Balaklytsky, V.Zdoroveg, V.Kuzmenko, O.Rarytsky, M.Fedun, T.Cherkashyn and others.

Solving unresolved parts of the problem. However, our literary studies owed to the authors, whose works are either chained to shelves of so-called special repositories, or scattered in numerous archives and private collections and are waiting for systematization, characterization and comprehension.

The purpose of the article. The purpose of the paper is to uncover the horizons of writer's life and creative individuality of the artists through the prism of their epistles.

Setting objectives. The solution of the goal involves solving the problem, which consists in a broad analysis, selection and coverage of previously unknown facts about the writers, as well as theoretical analysis of the epistolary genre.

Presenting main material

Memoirs (arench memoires - memoirs) - this is a story in the form of records from the person of the author about the real events of the past, the participant or eyewitness of whom he was. A memoirist, as a rule, reproduces only that part of reality, which is based mainly on his own direct impressions and memories, while at the same time he or she takes the foreground or his view of what he writes.

Prose writers, poets, playwrights, and scholars perform with memoirs, diaries, literary portraits, essays, letters and other genres of memoirs (in the last decades the ranks of the authors of this genre have been replenished). Everyone had his own interest, his own need to keep a diary, a notebook, to create a literary portrait, an artistic autobiography, and the following genres were written in his own way. With certainty, we can say that for each of the authors, memoirs were not secondary, side-by-side literature, which was created on «debris» of other genres. Awareness of the unusuality, the uniqueness of the experience, the need to look at oneself, to recall how to reconsider your own life in the context of time - that's what makes you take up the pen.

The confidence of the memoirist in the social need of his work is the most important condition for his work. Memoirs are published in separate books, published in periodicals. In newspapers there are new sections: «Page of Memories», «Memoirs», «Diary of the writer. Memoirs of the XX Century», «Diaries. Memoirs. Destiny». The best examples of the memoir genre are the works of I.Zhylenko, V.Drozd, A.Dimarov, R.Ivanychuk, Yu.Sheveliov,

L. Krushelnytska.

The document also actively penetrates into artistic prose, and uses it in different ways: from the quotation of documentary sources to their reproduction in the author's interpretation; often writers introduce in the narrative channel materials stylized to the document. Yet the most widespread today is the full use of documentary sources that can reproduce this or that stage in the life of the people, to convey to the reader the truth about certain historical events. Separate phenomena of the present, as well as many events of the past, always allow the master of artistic words to use vivid forms, to use the idea - life regulates the choice of the form of reflection of reality. It is possible to tell about certain phenomena of our day, as well as of the events of yesterday, much more clearly than on the pages of the artistic, fictitious work, with the help of facts in the memoirs.

At the same time, it should be stressed that the art of memoir prose attracts writers of different genres with free expression of thoughts, feelings, spiritual experience, opens the opportunity for the master of artistic words to express their expressiveness, self-expression. For memorable literature, intellectual stress, thinking about the eternal problems of being is typical. Thus it is possible to say with certainty that the art of autobiographical, memoir prose not only and not so much serves as a link between different genres, including those which are called canonical, main. Memoirs, diaries, letters, notes, etc., which focus on topical issues of our time - is an independent area of art, a literary phenomenon that is constantly evolving and updated.

Memoirs satisfy the constant need of a person in self-knowledge. They continue, develop and summarize all that was experienced and suffered. With their appearance, the image of a well-known author often acquires new features. In no other genre, the master of artistic word does not prolong himself and does not deny himself, as in his own memoirs, because no other generation of literature is related to such sometimes painful, sometimes joyful returns to oneself, to find oneself.

No less obvious is the public significance of memoirs, because what has survived a person can cause general, public interest. Memoir literature is a chronicle - a chronicle of the past and of great significance for historians.

The works of the memoir genre include autobiography, a diary, a notebook, a letter, an essay, a literary portrait, notes, an artistic biography, and others like that. M.Fedun proposes to classify memoirs according to the following parameters:

- by the origin of the authors (Ukrainians: about Ukraine and on foreign topics, foreigners about Ukraine);

- in volume (here cryptomemoires are allocated - small memories or their fragments, found in other sources, epic canvases from the narrative to the novel form);

- by the time of writing (notes, diaries, journals - on the one hand, and on the other - memories or memoirs written exclusively from memory, but based on the previous notes);

- on the role of the author in the events described by him (active, passive);

- in terms of content (political, military, professional, travel, religious, scientific, artistic, cultural and everyday, literary and artistic, scientific journalistic, etc.);

- by the social origin of the authors (memoirs of the clergy, large landowners, ordinary peasants, workers, civil servants);

- by gender (female, male);

- by the object of the image (object, subjective) (Fedun M., 2010,

p.39).

Such a classification is not devoid of a certain conditionality, but the division is sufficiently complete. However, almost impossible to talk about any particular genre sustainability in the memoir literature, as he tells genre masters of artistic expression, new genre sometimes unexpected forms. Certain genre signs of reference literature - factuality, the prevalence of events, the retrospective of the material and views, direct evidence of the author - does not always provide clear boundaries of memoirs. Not always the listed signs indicate that we have memorable works before us. This one time, summing up, warned in the preface to his work S.Moem the English writer, who believed that the constant reference to the past, appeals to personal experience, is not a sign that we face - memoir essay. At the same time, the memoir form is also used as a literary technique.

The analysis of the literary and artistic context of memoir literature at the turn of the century shows that it was in the second half of the 20^th century has updated already known genre forms (biography, essay, romance essay, biographical novel, memoir novel, novel research, etc.) and enriched with numerous genre varieties and inter-genre hybrid modifications (pseudobiography, biography-self-evidence, novel-fact, romance-mosaic, novel- search, novel-editing, story-document, search memoirs, etc.).

Evolutionary changes caused by the new content of reality contribute to the expansion of new horizons of memoirs, allowing writers to reproduce the objective reality on the pages of the work with all its diversity of manifestations and voices; even the extension of the term «documentary literature», according to scientists, indicates a sharp increase in the proportion of the document in our literature, and, therefore, about its new quality (I.Yanska, V.Cardin).

The mentioned processes testify to the extremely moving genre boundaries of memoiristics, which in the set of its modifications as a kind of integrity characterize the problem-thematic broad (these works cover important social, national, political, philosophical, psychological, existential problems); pathos polyphony (satirical jet, humorous, ironic and even tragic modules of artistic); linguistic riches (numerous phraseologisms, dialecticisms, and rough synonymous rows); expressive gravity toward genre syncretism, mixing and synthesizing different genera and genres, time displacements.

Special periods of recovery in the development of memoirs are characteristic of such moments when the need to comprehend the important events of the past or the present is brewing. The focus on the facts allows us to objectively consider complex, sometimes even contradictory phenomena, in terms of the revaluation of the moral criteria system, which enables us to comprehend what was previously unavailable before.

Literature born of a document, fact, possesses a number of qualities that to some extent meet the conditions of rapid development of life - it carries in itself a great power of information and cognitive potential, it has a special ability psychological influence on the reader. Because of this, the popularity of memoirs, researchers tend to regard as a phenomenon quite natural, can observe what is just born, is in the dynamics. In an effort to expand its capabilities, the memoiristics is transformed into a certain laboratory, where gradually new forms are being sought that would fit accurate, artistic analysis and reproduction of the processes of the present.

Memoir literature has long and thoroughly been recognized in literary criticism as a literary fact, which employs important and essential for the development of its own literature, features, facets, aspects, principles. The study of memoirs, the expansion of the limits of the literary series, will help to see the versatile and multifaceted process of mutual influence and mutual enrichment of literature both documentary and artistic.

The memorable stratum of literature is characterized by complex nature, as it is closely linked to journalism and artistic literature. Genre syncretism and hybrid forms of memoiristics determine the specifics of their analysis.

Traditionally, memoirism was regarded as part of literary life (Yu.Tynianov), which is directly tangent to real reality on the one hand, and on the other - to artistic reality. M.Bakhtin, for example, pointed to the fluidity of the boundaries between art and non-artistic, between literature and not literature (Bakhtin M., 1986, p.247).

Representatives of the cultural-historical school with their historicism and genetic approach saw in the memoirs a document that reveals the «causes» of the origin of the work, and the biographical elements were considered as one of the sources of the artistic image. A writer for a cultural-historical school is a social person, and therefore his main task is to identify «connections in existence».

The psychological school, the leading subject of study of which is the internal and psychological side of creativity, uses a memoir to find out the spiritual life of the author, the originality of his personality.

Indeed, memoirs are extremely rich in genre. And its peculiarity, specificity is determined by the interaction of two principles: artistic and documentary. Artistic documentalism seeks not to build on the basis of the fact of a fabrication, but the fact of artistically rethinking, while creating an artwork and not retreating, as far as possible, from the fact. This is one of the results of a complex process of development of modern cognition, the strengthening of the organic connection of science and art, proximity, within certain limits, elements of scientific and artistic methods of analysis of reality.

For documentary, objective reality exists no less real than for any other author. But besides this, there is still a document that requires research. At the same time, it should be noted that the document can not and should not disassociate the master of the word, to nullify his artistic personality. Though the individuality in the works of this genre is represented quite peculiarly: then in the foreground, especially in the so-called «search books», it seems to dissolve, giving the opportunity to come to the fore the documents and facts. The document in no way kills the creative «I», does not degrade artistic means and does not interfere with artistic possibilities. Here the author's outlook, his talent, skill comes into force.

Some researchers consider the memoirs in general to «intermediate genres» and their beliefs only a very thin line removes them from their own works of art, although «the difference between the world of the past and the world of poetic fabrication never erases» (L.Hinzburg) and it is in particular quality documentary literature - «in the direction of authenticity, the feeling of which does not leave the reader, but which is far from always equal to the actual accuracy. At the same time, in the works of art and documentary literature, an aesthetic organization is singled out, since the character in memoirs can be a factor of the same artistic value as in the novel, since the latter is also a certain creative structure, and the aesthetic activity generating it goes much further, in depth that life's self-knowledge and knowledge of the surrounding and the counter, which is and always was an indispensable condition for communication between people. And the marginality of a memoir, that is, independence from certain canons and rules, gives it an experimental courage and latitude, a relaxed and intimate attitude to the reader» (Hinzburg L., 1970, p.64).

L.Hinzburg expressed the idea of a genre of diversity of memoirs, from the «Confessions» of Rousseau, with its maximum self-disclosure of personality to the chronicler-political memoirs of Madame de Stal, who emphasized that memoirs can be simultaneously historical and «human» documents, and also noted that in memoirs, in a certain story building of the image of reality and human image there is a retrospective dynamics (in contrast to diaries and letters, which consolidate the process of life with an even unknown solution, where the dynamics is gradual), bridging the memoir genres with the novel.

One of the prerequisites that facilitates the transition of documentary literature to the phenomena of art, is the aesthetic organization, that for «aesthetic value is not mandatory fiction, but a mandatory organization - selection and creative combination of elements reflected and transformed by the word» (L.Hinzburg). Consequently, the main requirements for works of memorable nature are:

- the aesthetic importance of the fact which is included in the documentary work;

- composition and narrative placement of facts into a single whole;

- the presence of an author's commentary, which combines documentary material, forming a peculiar system.

According to O.Halych, P.Kononenko, M.Naienko, the first criterion for identifying an autobiographical work is the use of the information of an autobiography to reveal a particular social («story of a generation») or philosophical («the history of the personality of the artist») theme. The artistic memoirs contain a dual thematic center - «History I», «History of Society».

A clear typology of genre varieties of memoir prose and their characteristics is offered by one of the few her researches, O.Halych. He singled out the following genre signs of memoirs:

- firstly, subjectivity or a personal beginning. Subjectivity reveals the personality of the author of memoirs, his outlook, political and aesthetic views;

- secondly, memoirs must be addressed to the past. The author can write in them only about what has already entered into history. All this requires a certain time distance;

- thirdly, for the works of the memorial stratum inherent documentation. It is not only that the author of this genre must only accurately reproduce the historical dates, surnames, events, but also that any image in the memoir is documentary, and therefore - reliable.

- fourth, for the works of the memoir genre it is inherent to have two timetables, which means that the author has a double point of view in describing the event. It means that the events that the artist describes are perceived in real life, as well as taking into account certain life experiences.

- the fifth feature is connected with the fact that a memoirist can never be within the limits of one time measurement, since any event causes him certain associations, which leads to the appearance of new memories, absorb what was earlier and something that should happen much later.

- the sixth most important genre parameter of memoirs O.Halych believes conceptuality. That is, the author of a work must necessarily translate into his work his view of the events described (Halych O., 1999, с.9).

Consequently, taking into account the views of various researchers, in the theory of memoirs clearly outlined the following features: retrospective, that is, conversion to the past. The time interval between the implementation of events and the creation of memories - from several weeks to decades. Under the influence of accumulated life experience, a certain position of the author in a society, etc., his attitude to events changes. Knowing the future, which was actually the same for the described events and individuals and being in this future at the time of writing memoirs, the author becomes a hostage to this knowledge.

Basically, retrospective gracefully affects the development of memoir literature. On the one hand, it is a guarantee of a certain freedom of the author from the burden of the past, makes it possible to evaluate it from a higher point of view, and on the other - it allows you to imagine this past in its partial or complete completeness. The retrospective angle of view seems to «filter» information, defines a kind of certain historicism, the possibility of coverage in a new perspective of already known or unknown facts.

Author's subjectivity is an inherent feature of any memoir (no tendentious subjectivism of individual memoirists is directed, and subjectivity as an openly expressed personality principle, which forms the structural and organizing principle of a memoir narrative (accusations of subjectivity are an attack on the laws of the subjective genre.) The constitutive features of subjective memoirs are:

- the appearance on the prominent place of the author of a work formally implemented in the form of «I» the narrator and the protagonist;

- the desire to submit an era and its heroes in the light of their own destiny and life experience;

- the preponderance of lyrical elements over epic, propensity to confession;

- the deployment of the work as an autobiography using the genre paradigm of the novel, novel, short stories, stories, etc.;

- establishment of self-sufficient value of the subjective concept of the material.

The third sign is memory. The memoir is oriented to the reproduction of a historically concrete, real-past reality. Because of this, the selection of material, which is carried out by a memoir, differs from the selection of a scientist or artist: reproducing the past, he in many cases destroys it, depicts selectively, subjectively. This is the most important reason for the fact that some authors of memoirs of literature are resorting to other sources, in order to restore, establish spaces in memory, give testimony of others, letters, documents, which also must be considered a specific feature of the memoir genre.

Conclusions and perspectives of further exploration

documentary source history memoirs

Thus, the development of memoirs is noted not only as opening new facts and testimonies about the past, making them the property of the public, but at the same time it penetrates more deeply into their content, to the presence of internal connections between the past and the present. Over the years, the information role of it somewhat weakens, but it strengthens, social and cognitive function is formed, moral, aesthetic principle grows. Memoir literature often becomes problematic-thematic, and in accordance with this, the principles of the organization of the material, the internal structure of the works, their form becomes more complex and varied. The boundary separating memoirs from literary fiction itself becomes less pronounced, less tangible, which in many cases makes it difficult to study them.

Список використаних джерел

1. Бахтин М. Проблема речевых жанров. Эстетика словесного творчества. М.: Искусство, 1986. С.230-290.

2. Галич О. Письменницькі мемуари в школі. Луганськ, ВКФ «Знання», 1999. 68 с.

3. Гинзбург Л. О документальной литературе и принципах построения характера. Вопросы литературы. 1970. №7. С.62-69.

4. Федунь М.Р. Вітчизняна мемуаристика в Західній Україні першої половини ХХ століття: історичні тенденції, жанрова специфіка, поетика: монографія / М. Федунь. Івано-Фр.: В-во Прикарпатського національного ун-ту ім. В. Стефаника, 2010. 452 с.

5. The Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. David Mealand Related information. University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.3828/ MC.22.4.180

References

1. Bahtin M. Problema rechevyh zhanrov. Jestetika slovesnogo tvorchestva. M.: Iskusstvo, 1986. S.230-290 (rus).

2. Halych O. Pys”mennyc”ki memuary v shkoli. Luhans”k, VKF «Znannya», 1999. 68 s (ukr).

3. Ginzburg L. O dokumental'noj literature i principah postroenija haraktera. Voprosy literatury. 1970. №7. S.62-69 (rus).

4. Fedun” M. Vitchyznyana memuarystyka v Zaxidnij Ukrayini pershoyi polovyny XX stolittya: istorychni tendenciyi, zhanrova specyfika, poetyka: monohrafiya / M.Fedun”. Ivano-Fr.: V-vo Prykarpatskoho nacionalnoho un-tu im. V. Stefanyka, 2010. 452 s (ukr).

5. The Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. David Mealand Related information. University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.3828/MC. 22.4.180

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