THE MARI STORY OF THE 1920-1930TH YEARS
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE VALUABLE PARADIGM AND POETICS OF ENLIGHTENMENT REALISM

Raisia A. Kudryavtseva¹, Tatyana N. Belyaeva²*, Marianna V. Ryabinina³,
& Galina E. Shkalina^4
1Prof, Mari State University, RUSSIA, kudsebs@rambler.ru
²Asst. Prof., Mari State University, RUSSIA, sokolova_beljaeva@mail.ru
³Asst. Prof., Mari State University, RUSSIA, mari.riabinina@yandex.ru
⁴Prof, Mari State University, RUSSIA, galina_shkalina@mail.ru
*Corresponding author

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the manifestation of the content-value attitudes and features of the poetics of enlightening realism in the Mari story of the 1920-1930th years.
The article deals with the post-revolutionary stories of M. Shketan and Y. Elexseyn in the context of the general features of the educational stories of the Volga region peoples in the first third of the twentieth century, it reveals the distinctive features of the Mari story (the using of direct forms of expression of the didactic idea, an open author's position, the simplest plot construction and a minimum set of events and heroes). The forms of the artistic embodiment of the didactic idea followed both from the peculiarities of the writer’s creative individuality and from the national specificity of the people’s aesthetic thinking. The comparative analysis of the Mari and Chuvash moralizing stories are presented in this article (M. Shketan’s «They separate» and I. Thti «Hello, Okitaro, hello!»). They are united by the educational moral idea and differed in ways of its disclosure.

In these Thti’s and Shketan’s stories the idea is revealed through the study of private human lives, through the reproduction of family and household scenes. There is no directly expressed social content. However, the life of the nation, people and society, the fate of culture and traditions, human life in general are highlighted through private in them. Shketan’s generalizations of its kind are direct and through the figurative images. It makes his work sketch story, a synthesis of the essay (with strengthening the effect of authenticity of the represent and publicistic beginning in the content level and the form) and the humorous story (with bright images of comic characters – Petra and Corey – and dynamic comic situations). Thti’s generalization is based on the allusion, the allegory, which turns his work into a story-parable, in which the universal, philosophical principles are strengthened.

Having the identical form of the narration (Shketan’s, and Thti’s stories have the first-person narrative); they embody two different compositional principles (montage and opposition).
It is proved, that broadcast of the enlightening value paradigm in the Mari story has been connected also with the art reconstruction of the people’s moral experience, pedagogics and philosophy. In this context Yk. Elexseyn’s stories of the 1920s are analyzed. The basis of the author’s understanding of life and people in them is just the moral values of the Mari people, among them the industriousness, will and endurance are in the first flight and form the basis of spiritual and moral culture of the Mari people. The deficiency of them, in the author’s opinion, is the cause of the tragedy of Chopay, the main character of the «Birch Box» story, and the emotional stresses of his parents.

In the art structure of the story «Peter, who lives on the edge of the ravine» semantic ideas in the author’s concept and formal trait of the main character are hard-working nature, pragmatism, frankness, contumacy and will, in all this is some kind of «perseverance of life» that allows people to survive in any household, social, historical situation.

In the Mari literature, which was focused on the valuable paradigm and poetics of educational realism, the predominant place was occupied by the essay story and «story-character». In the first case, the publicistic form of expression of the didactic idea has been noted, in the second case, the author’s attention was focused on the ethno-moral component of the person and the character’s behavior, for what the material of the Mari folk pedagogy was actively involved.

Structural-semantic and comparative-typological methods of research are used in the article.

Keywords: Mari literature, enlightening realism, story, valuable paradigm, poetics.