«Eternal» themes and their transformation in perestroika-era fiction story Avariya by Y. M. Korotkov

Background. A question of «eternal» themes in literary science is significant. Throughout the existence of mankind, number of certain themes remains inexhaustible, passing from one time period to other one, from book to book. That is why it is interesting to see, how «eternal» themes develop in the literary process, including in modern one. Fiction texts of perestroika-period are little studied in the science, which is why we addressed to the book of this epoch. All the above makes the relevance of our research.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the realization of «eternal» themes in the fiction story Avariya by Y.M. Korotkov, identifying their specific in the text of perestroika-epoch.

Materials and methods. In this work the method of analysis and synthesis of theoretical information was applied to understand the essential characteristics of the theme as a literary category for further researching «eternal» themes in the fiction story Avariya (their transformation on the example of text of perestroika-epoch), produced by textual analysis.

Results. We identified «eternal» themes in the fiction story Avariya and analyzed their transformation, which was due to the specific of historical period, that allowed us to come to following results. The theme of relations of «fathers» and «children», the theme of feelings and the theme of the prodigal son are also reflected in the literary creativity, and the perestroika-epoch puts an imprint on their realization. The conflict of «fathers» and «children» is reflected in the text both at the family level and out-of-family level, the change of epoch and ideology plays a huge role in their disputes. The theme of feelings, considered by us as eternal, was realized in the destructive aspect, the distortion of the notion of true feelings was revealed, which is due to the perestroika-epoch pathos of this fiction story; it is in what we see the specificity of the realization of the theme of feelings (as eternal one) in the perestroika text. The theme of prodigal son, realized in the fiction story in the image of prodigal daughter, is revealed by the motif of crime and punishment: it shows how the life’s path of the character led her to a tragic outcome; the evangelical’s plot about the prodigal son differs from the spot of researching fiction story, the author introduces perestroika’s context of the realization of the theme. All the above makes it possible to say that «eternal» themes are strongly raised in the texts of modern literary process, and the epoch’s sentiments affects their development.