Fabulousness without a Fairy Tale in Jan Barshevsky’s 'Shlyahtits Zavalnya'

Abstract

The subject of attention in this article is the plot language of 'Shlyahtits Zavalnya' in the author’s gradual plot distancing from the traditions of folklore and in the folk scene reflected in the literary type. It is very clear that 'Shlyahtits Zavalnya' resembles an archetypal form of a fairy tale. But faced with new original semantics, which is radically different from the semantics of folk motifs and images, the form of a fairy tale is substantially modified. The reason of the story transformation is seen in the following: the direct use of folk elements observable in the multidimensional context of the plot of 'Shlyahtits Zavalnya' becomes the author’s conscious artistic mission; the creation of a specific artistic reality in accordance with the reinforced understanding of character action, which is limited not only by mythological-folkloric metaphorics, becomes a new form of creative writing.