“War Culture” and “Historical Phantoms”: Learning to Read Vasil Bykaŭ

Abstract

This article is dedicated to a new reading of the literary works of Vasil Bykaŭ (1924–2003), an eminent Belarusian prose writer, who is regarded as war combatant and known for his exceptionally realistic, tragic, and autobiographical depictions of the 1941–1945 war. Bykaŭ, a Nobel Prize nominee, has been the subject of numerous scholarly studies. However, the author of this article considers the established critical positions to be polemical and introduces several contemporary literary and social categories to present the creative complex of the writer from a completely different perspective. This perspective is not about war memory, but instead views war as an imagined, metaphorical turn, even con cealing true authorial content. Unfortunately, many readers to this day do not recognize many of Bykaŭ’s metaphors and allegories, thus his prose, even on the eve of his 100th anniversary, can be classified as “unread texts.” Therefore, there arises a need for a new look at Bykaŭ, based on providing the reader with specific literary tools that the writer uses in one of his outstanding prose works – “The Alpine Ballad” (1963). The aim is to demonstrate, through some interpretive me thods, how Bykaŭ reveals his profound knowledge of European culture and bases his own creative concept on it, utilizing varied and complex stylistics. The conside rations in the article conclude that the main theme of Vasil Bykaŭ’s work is the patriotic concern for the return path of his country from a repressive-camp zone with a forcibly imposed to the roots “war culture” and culture shared with Europe.