THE REALIZATION OF THE MYTHOLOGEME ULTIMA THULE IN THE EARLY PROSE OF V.V. NABOKOV AND G. GAZDANOV
Abstract
https://doi.org/10.18522/1995-0640-2025-1-118-128
In their early work, the emigrant writers V.V. Nabokov and G. Gazdanov, brought to the stage the original type of the main character – a dreamer-traveler, who became a common fundamental basis uniting the aesthetic programs of the two Russian writers. The play of consciousness with images of the past correlates with the figure of the “dreamerˮ, due to which the concept of memory arises in the artistic system of writers. The main characters from the early prose of V.V. Nabokov and G. Gazdanov correlate in that they tend to deconstruct memories in the process of retrospective reflection. The figure of the “travelerˮ determines the aspect of both physical and spiritual journey. In episodes with a starry night, such characters, asking metaphysical questions, feel an influx of romantic feelings, as a result there is a desire to get closer to the unattainable Ultima Thule, which in different contexts may mean different meanings: Russia, beloved, the realm of the transcendent. The image of the starry sky appears not as a background, but as forming the perception of the characters and having a direct relationship to their mental organization, which allows in a number of episodes to feel like a part of the natural universe.
Key words: Ultima Thule, mythologeme, existentialism, dreamer-traveler, natural philosophy, absurd
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Aleksey V. Gromov
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
