"Metaphor-personification" in V.G. Korolenko's Siberian short stories (based on the material of the Yakut cycle)

Filippova Aiyana Alexsanovna ORCID: 0000-0002-5861-0085 Postgraduate student, Department of Yakut Literature, Maxim Kirovich Ammosov Northeastern Federal University 42 Kulakovsky str., Yakutsk, 677000, Russia fiayalex11@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Basharina Zoya Konstantinovna Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of Yakut Literature, Northeastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov 10/1 Ostrovsky str., Yakutsk, 677021, Russia zbasharina@mail.ru

Introduction

"Kulik L.S. in the book "The Siberian Stories of V.G. Korolenko" ^[11] emphasizes that the "dissimilarity" of Korolenko's artistic manner was already felt by modern criticism of the writer. However, the extensive pre-revolutionary literature could not provide a deep and comprehensive analysis of his work in general, nor, in particular, his Siberian stories, could not reveal the features of his skill. In Soviet times, a lot was done to study Korolenko's creative legacy. There have also been works devoted to the problem of the originality of the writer's style." First of all, it should be noted the work of Yu. Nikolaeva, K.F., Golovnin, V.P. Burenin, L.E. Obolensky, I.I. Ivanov, Y. Aichenwald, S. Gorodetsky, L.S. Kulik and many others.

To this day, Korolenko's work arouses great interest among researchers and scientists. Thus, the Yakut theme in the works of V.G. Korolenko is devoted to the works of B.M. Belyaevskaya, M.K. Azadovsky, K.F. Pasyutin, N.P. Kanaev, G.K. Boeskorov, K.I. Platonova, O.I. Ivanova, M.G. Mikhailova, I.S. Yemelyanov and others.

There is a separate monograph on metaphors in the work of V. G. Korolenko on the topic of the writer's use of tropes. This is K.'s job. Platonova "Means and techniques of expression in V. G. Korolenko's Siberian stories". However, the researcher here is mainly concerned with scrupulous statistical analysis, and the metaphor is considered only as a linguistic trope. Also, according to Platonova, lyrical expression itself, as well as in the opinion of many other researchers, belongs to peripheral visual means that complement, decorate, enrich the basic meaning.

It is customary to distinguish between a national metaphorization and an individual author's one. The first type refers to the metaformic use of words that has become stable and entered the semantic system of the national language. Such metaphors exist in the spoken language of the people, in oral folk art and in fiction. Individual author's metaphors are those metaphors that arise in the context of the writer's artistic works. The basis for the birth of new fresh metaphors is unusual lexical connections, a new lexical environment, unusual for the concrete meaning of words.

Purpose, methods and materials

In modern literary studies, there are a large number of different works devoted to the study of metaphor. But despite this, many issues remain not fully understood.  Therefore, scientists study the metaphor from different positions: from linguistic, literary, philosophical, psychological, etc., new aspects of the study of this problem are revealed each time. Thanks to the work of J. Lakoff and M. Johnson's "Metaphors that we Live by", published in 1980, the study of metaphor is still relevant today. The relevance of this study is determined by:

1. Insufficient knowledge of metaphor-personification in the work of V.G. Korolenko;
2. The need to present the example of metaphor-personification as an individual author's style of V.G. Korolenko.

The purpose of the work is to study the functioning of metaphor-personification using the example of V.G. Korolenko's Siberian stories (based on the material of the Yakut cycle). To achieve this goal, the following tasks are put forward:

1. To identify the features of V.G. Korolenko's individual style;
2. To analyze text fragments from Siberian stories from the point of view of artistic expressiveness created by metaphors-personifications.

Various metaphor personifications were selected from Siberian stories using a continuous sampling method. This study uses general scientific methods of observation and description. 

The research material was text fragments obtained by continuous sampling from V.G. Korolenko's Siberian short stories, in particular from the stories "Makar's Dream", "Sokolinets". For the analysis used In these stories, the author skillfully uses the technique of anthropomorphism. With the help of metaphor, personification and other artistic means of expression, he enlivens and humanizes nature. The personification of the forces of nature always serves Korolenko to reveal the state of mind, thoughts and feelings of a person. Due to the metaphor-personification, the surrounding world comes to life. This blurs the lines between the animate and inanimate world. The imagery and expressiveness of figurative meanings, their beauty and impressive power depend on the individual author's skill of the writer, on his ability to capture the subtlest nuances of analogy and contrast. 

The practical significance of this research lies in the fact that its theoretical and practical results can be used in teaching courses on "History of Russian Literature", "History of Yakut literature". The article may be useful for philologists, researchers, and students of higher education.

The main part

In addition to the well-known metaphors, V.G. Korolenko developed his own individually authored metaphors based on impersonation. Metaphorization based on personification is Korolenko's "calling card", his peculiar creative handwriting, which cannot be confused with anyone. The stories "Makar's Dream" and "Sokolinets" are especially rich in metaphors and personifications.

The technique of anthropomorphism is the representation of the forces of nature in a human image. For example: "The fire sparkled merrily, shining through the frosted ice floes" ^[8]. "The rays of the moon, pushing through the thicket, played on the golden wool" ^[8]. "The soft light of the flash, breaking through their peaks, walked along it, in some places revealing a snowy clearing, then the lying corpses of broken forest giants, launched by snow..." ^[8].

So, in the story "Makar's Dream", with the help of impersonation, there is a sharp change in space. Before the death of poor Makar, mother nature was hostile towards him: "Taiga was silent. She only closed in behind him with a kind of hostile stubbornness and gave no light or hope anywhere. Meanwhile, taiga was getting more animated, but she was animating in a hostile way. Now the young trees were directly, without any hesitation, hitting him in the face, mocking his helpless position. Now even the distant trees stretched long branches onto his path and grabbed him by the hair, hit him in the eyes, in the face. Black grouse came out of secret lairs and ... and they loudly told the females about him... And the hares ... they laughed, reporting that Makar got lost and would not leave the taiga."^[8]

And after Makar's miraculous resurrection, the same nature that had mocked him became humble and quiet: "Now the larches stood over him humble, quiet, as if ashamed of their former pranks. Bright and kind stars peered from the blue sky through the frequent branches and seemed to say: "You see, the poor man died. Radiant snowflakes were just as quietly setting in the air. ... the dark taiga itself was running away from them, and the high snowy mountains seemed to melt into the twilight of the night and quickly disappeared over the horizon. Then, from the crest of the hill they had climbed, the edge of the long-set moon appeared. She seemed in a hurry to leave, but Makar and popik were catching up with her. Finally, she began to rise above the horizon again. Makar had not noticed before that it seemed to be getting light on the plain. First of all, a few bright rays ran out from the horizon. They quickly ran across the sky and extinguished the bright stars. And the stars went out, and the moon set. And the snowy plain darkened."^[8] "When the mists rose above her and the plains surrounded her like an honorable guard. And in one place, in the east, the mists became lighter, like warriors dressed in gold. And then the mists swayed, the golden warriors bent down. And the sun came out from behind them, and stood on their golden ridges, and looked around the plain."^[8] In this story, the taiga space evokes ambivalent feelings in the reader, since the author very skillfully used the technique of personifying nature.

The idea of the story "Sokolinets" is to show the life of free tramps, the spirit of camaraderie, the search for love, freedom. Korolenko wrote several short stories on the topic of vagrancy. Of these, we will consider only the story "Sokolinets", since in it the author used the impersonation technique a lot. For example: "The last faint rays gradually left through the ice floes of the windows from a small yurt; thick darkness crept out of the corners, obscured the sloping walls, which seemed to move more and more tightly overhead" ^[8]. "... it was from outside through the window ice floes that the dead Yakut frost looked dimly into the yurt" ^[8]. "Minutes, hours passed over my head in a silent sequence, and I realized how imperceptibly that fateful hour had crept up..."^[8]. "The fog stood motionless, squeezed out of the air by a forty-degree frost, and pressed harder and harder on the silent earth..." ^[8]. "Soon, in the fireplace, which yawned wide with an open mouth in the middle of the yurt, the light of a splinter I lit flashed" ^[8]. The image of "fire" occupies a leading place in Korolenko's work. The fire makes him feel something bright, bright, warm. The fire "comes to life" thanks to anthropomorphic personifications: "The silent yurt was suddenly filled with chatter and crackling. The fire ran between the logs with a hundred tongues, engulfed them, played with them, jumped, rumbled, hissed and crackled. Something bright, lively, hurried and restlessly chatty burst into the yurt, looking into all its corners and nooks. At times, the crackling, raging flames subsided. Then I could hear hot sparks hissing and cracking in the frosty air as they flew out into the short straight chimney of the fireplace. But after a minute, the fire began to play with renewed vigor, and frequent explosions were heard in the yurt, like pistol shots" ^[8]. "I knew that soon the cheerful fire would cease; the flame would lazily and languidly stretch over the red-hot wood, then only a pile of coals would remain, and fire snakes would run along them, whispering something, quieter, less and less..."^[8]. "The little stone will look in the dark with a faint spark from under the ashes, as if from a half-closed eye, it will look once and twice, and ... he will fall asleep" ^[8].  The personifications of "fire ran between logs, jumped, rumbled, hissed and crackled" allow us to consider inanimate space as a living being.

With the help of impersonation, inanimate objects have the ability to puff, sigh, think, speak, play: "Only the splashing of the sea could be heard from outside, waves crashing along the waterline along the chest of the steamer, and the heavy chugging of the machine echoed hollowly along with the measured strokes of the pistons" ^[8].  "The steamer on which they lived for so long rocked in the dark and sighed in the middle of the night with clouds of white steam"^[8]. "The stone shore is moaning all over, the sea is climbing on the shore!"^[8]. "And never-maybe you've heard it yourself–it's never silent, the sea is. Everything seems to be saying something, Ali sings the song and mumbles like that..."^[8]. "The earth lies huge, vast, sad, all immersed in heavy thought. A silent, heavy cloud hung over..." ^[8]. "The slanting rays of the sun played on the floor of the yurt, cutting through the ice floes."^[9]

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth noting that Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko uses the technique of anthropomorphism in his Siberian stories, namely in the stories "Makar's Dream" and "Sokolinets". With the help of metaphor, personification and other artistic means of expression, he enlivens and humanizes nature. The personification of the forces of nature always serves Korolenko to reveal the state of mind, thoughts and feelings of a person. Due to the metaphor-personification, the surrounding world comes to life. This blurs the lines between the animate and inanimate world. V.G. Korolenko basically personifies objects of both living and inanimate. The "humanized" nature often becomes hostile towards man. "Now the young trees directly, without any hesitation, hit him in the face, mocking his helpless position. Now even distant trees stretched long branches onto his path and grabbed him by the hair, hit him in the eyes, in the face," and sometimes feels a sense of shame "Now the larches stood over him humble, quiet, as if ashamed of former pranks." As for the objects of the inanimate world, they are not just personified, but endowed with certain abilities "The steamer on which they lived for so long rocked in the dark and sighed in the middle of the night with clouds of white steam."                                   

The imagery and expressiveness of figurative meanings, their beauty and impressive power depend on the individual author's skill of the writer, on his ability to capture the subtlest nuances of analogy and contrast.

Thus, V.G. Korolenko skillfully uses individual author's metaphors-personifications in his Siberian stories, which is proved by this article.