The evolution of artistic conflict in the work of V.S. Makanin

Chzhan YUKUN Postgraduate student; Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, Faculty of Philology; Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 6 Miklukho-Maklaya str., Moscow, 620075, Russia 954504210@qq.com

Introduction. It seems possible to build a theoretical foundation for the study of conflict, and most importantly artistic conflict, thanks to a systematic approach, the general scientific advantages of which were outlined by M. S. Kagan ^[1], and the literary ones by J. Kaller ^[2], Y. M. Kiselyov ^[3] and E. A. Kravchenkova ^[4]. Thus, according to M. S. Kagan, this approach is appropriate to use for studying system objects, since it is designed to provide holistic knowledge about them ^{[1, p. 76]}. The latter is ensured by the fact that, firstly, the system under study considers artistic conflict as part of a meta-system, that is, from the outside, from the environment in which it is inscribed and in which it functions; secondly, the study of the system takes place in three planes: subject, functional and historical - which must be recognized as sufficient methodological components of the system the whole approach.

For a long time, the study of the concept of "conflict" was carried out using descriptive (through a system of overlapping concepts) and mimetic (through a description of the essential in the existing) approaches. Even ancient theater studies formed a terminological series for the designation of concepts and categories related to conflict. The concept of "agon" was introduced – "a verbal contest during which two opponents defend opposite positions, and the chorus incites them" ^{[5, p. 58]} – and "vicissitudes" – the change of events to the opposite laws of probability or necessity ^{[6, p. 657]}.

Regarding the artistic conflict, everything seems much more complicated and requires, first of all, arguments to distinguish it from life. Analyzing the experience of world literature and literary criticism, one can see a lot of evidence that an artistic conflict reflects a life conflict, and this is a prerequisite for applying a modeling approach, the essence of which we will consider below.

Since conflict is a way of motivational and causal explanation of the event chain through the opposite relationship between the bearers of opposite ideas, it certainly receives a semantic load ^{[7, p. 62]}. It is the conflict, according to I. Kiselyov, that determines the pathos and event level of the work. The definition of the conflict of the idea and pathos of the work helps to formulate another of its functions – the aesthetic education of the reader and the viewer (provided that the work receives a stage embodiment) ^[3].

Meanwhile, the emergence of an unlimited number of readers' interpretations of the conflict reflected in a work of fiction is not necessarily determined by the presence of a number of criteria, in particular labeling and ambiguity. In other words, only the conflict that encompasses generalized images that are subject to different interpretations is artistic. But the conflict, the participants of which are quite specific (as it is in feuilletons, parodies, works-replicas of artistic discussions), although embodied in an artistic work, is not artistic itself. It can become artistic if its participants lose concreteness for the reader, cease to be unambiguous, and hidden markers of artistry begin to play a leading role.

Perhaps the problem with the ability of art to understand the meaning of conflict (including with literature of an aesthetic turn) is that it is impossible to resist "turning a flap into a detail, and art into a goal" ^{[8, p. 91]}. However, it is at this moment that a person is confronted with the conflict itself, and "the aesthetics of the work either opens up or dissolves into any function that it can still perform" ^{[8, p. 91]}. Perhaps this inexpediency should be recognized, and it is in this recognition that the contribution of literature to the artistic conflict acquires its intensity and significance.

The problems of the study. Well-known Russian and Chinese scientists and researchers studied the problems of interpretation of images and artistic conflicts in V.S. Makanin's prose. Thus, Candidate of Philological Sciences of the Russian Federation E. A. Kravchenkova in her dissertation identifies "a wide range of topics, reflected in various works of the writer, forms the main problem of V. S. Makanin's creativity – human suffering and pain" ^{[4, p.7]}. Doctor of Philology of the Russian Federation T. N. Markova believed that "loss is the most important of the leitmotives of V.S. Makanin's prose. The meaning of this word-concept in the course of the unfolding of the Makanin narrative grows, expands, until it acquires a huge, comprehensive scale, correlated only with the meaning of human existence. Substituting the concept of "memory" with the concept of "monument", a person loses touch with the past, which means he loses the feeling of himself in time" ^{[9, p. 16]}.

A Russian-language monograph by the Chinese scientist Gong Qingqing was widely distributed in the context of the research topic, which in its book focused on the study of the connection of the writer's works with postrealism and postmodernism, with mythology and folklore as the most important sources of modern artistic consciousness ^[10]. Xie Zhou, Zhang Weiwei ^[11] and Hou Weihong ^[7] also studied this issue.

The main part. Vladimir Makanin (1937-2017) is one of the most influential and authoritative writers in modern Russian literary circles. The writer was born in 1937, and began publishing works in the first half of the 1960s. This is the generation of writers who put an end to the harsh "Iron Age" of Russian literature, created "thaw literature" and opened the "Bronze Age". Only more than ten years later, V. S. Makanin's works attracted the attention of critics, and he was attributed to the next generation of "writers of the seventies".

The two main factors that contributed to the transformation of Soviet Russian society in the 1960s and 1970s were: the highly centralized administrative power of Soviet Russia and the scientific and technical revolution that actively advanced after the "thaw". These two factors contributed to the urbanization of Russian society, but they also created a situation in which people's lives are stable and monotonous, their thoughts are simple and poor, and their individuality is almost exhausted.

By the early 1980s, he had published "Straight Line", "Tales of the Old Village", "Klyucharev and Alimushkin", "In the Big City", "On the Winter Road" and more than a dozen collections of works, all of these works describe the mediocrity of Soviet Russian society. The main character of the book either becomes incompetent in "everyday life", as Klyucharev in the story "Klyucharev and Alimushkin", or as Klyucharev in the story "Blue and Red". The main characters of V. S. Makanin consciously cultivate their understanding of "correctness", possess personal characteristics and broadcast a personalized lifestyle. This denial of mediocrity and the assertion of individuality contradict the unique and exclusive "Soviet way of life" promoted by Soviet officials at that time. Therefore, in the eyes of Soviet official criticism, V. S. Makanin's works contained something suspicious and could not be published. Therefore, it is not surprising that he was treated coldly. His works at this evolutionary stage are classified as gray literature, and his characters are classified as intermediate characters ^[9].

With the spread of social tolerance in Soviet Russia in the mid-1980s and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, what Sartre called "creative freedom embedded in political freedom" appeared in Russia. V. S. Makanin entered a new creative period.

Since the mid-1980s, V.S. Makanin has consistently published such stories as "Our Morning", "The Caucasian Prisoner", "A Place in the Sun", "Where the sky converged with the hills", "Man and Woman", "Loss", "Our Path is Long", "Laz", "A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle" and other novels: "Underground, or the Hero of our time", "Fright", "Asan" and other novels.

Compared with the early works of V. S. Makanin, these works have a broader theme, contain descriptions of richer characters of personalities and more diverse genres. The author writes about engineers, janitors, the mentally ill, veterans, pensioners, freelance writers and much more. His novels include realistic novels, dystopian novels, socio-psychological novels, and novels of mixed genres that are difficult to classify.

In the works of this stage, V.S. Makanin continues to focus on the lives of ordinary people in modern society and the theme of banality. The difference from the previous evolutionary stage of the writer is that now he can without any doubt describe and analyze the mediocrity of the whole society and its harm. Russian Russian culture, for example, he pointed out in the "Averaging Plot" that, thanks to the creative and individual spiritual search of many people with high ideals, the Russian culture of the 19th century showed a rapidly developing upward trend due to the Russian culture of the 20th century; its reliance on the already existing. Having found the so-called eternal truth and renouncing research and striving for individuality, he turns into a breeding ground for laziness and mediocrity. The writer also realized a deep truth arising from the usual phenomenon of queues in Soviet Russian society ^[12].

In conditions of scarcity and limited opportunities, people have to stand in line to do something. And precisely because there are so few opportunities, everyone in the queue hopes to displace the person in front of them, so they try their best to be picky about the person in front. The way people line up and a slight deviation from the line causes the crowd to attack him from behind and kick him out of the game. At the same time, in order not to be pushed out of the queue by others, everyone in the queue tried their best to stand in line and did not dare to deviate in the slightest. Over time, mediocrity, strife, conformity and rigid thinking have become chronic diseases of society.

In the work "Laz" V. S. Makanin focuses on the intellectual essence of the hero, which finds expression in the details of his image. One of these details is a carefully guarded hat with a pompom. In the first pages of the story, Klyucharev likes to wander through the splendidly lit corridors, their soft light calms him down. He describes the lighting as a "miracle" and notices the joyful glow of the walls, beautiful bright calendars and even white medical gowns that collect particles of diffused warm light. However, over time, the hero begins to be alarmed by the inability to determine the source of this light, which is directed at this or that object, like a sword thrust ^[13]. There is no sharp contrast between the "present" and the "future" in the novel. Even among the relatively comfortable inhabitants of the dungeon, there is no faith in the prospects of a world based on blood and tears. A visible symbol of this loss of hope is the hill on which the "tickets to the future" are located, which has already reached human height.

In the new century, V. S. Makanin still describes such heroes: they have many flaws and sins, but they are also good at sympathizing and loving others, endowed with conscience, and conscience can cause existence from a state of being lost in the crowd. In other words, the writer stands for a life full of freedom, individuality and choice. Such people are an old retired man in "Fright" and Major Zhilin in "Asana". The first of the two adheres to his personality and demonstrates his life by caring and loving women ^[14]. The second adheres to his personality and uses his wit and bravery to carry out his official duties unhindered, take care of his subordinates and colleagues, as well as help Chechens. A man and an ethnic Russian mother who came to a war zone in search of a captive son. None of them "melts" among their fellows. Their images make people feel real and trustworthy, giving them spiritual enlightenment and pleasure ^[15].

The novels written by V. S. Makanin in the XXI century have a huge reading potential due to his extensive inheritance of the wonderful traditions of Russian literature and literature from other countries of the world. This characteristic of the writer can also be assessed by the titles of the works listed above. For example, "The Caucasian Prisoner" reminds us of the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy ^[16], and "Underground, or the Hero of our time "naturally resembles Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" ^[17]. This creates an infinitely wide ideological space for readers to understand the work. It is possible to trace all the stages of the formation and development of conflict in the works of the writer, which are based on the achievements of his predecessors. However, if we compare the fates of Zhilin Tolstoy and Zhilin Makanin, we can highlight the writer's dialogue with his predecessors, complementing them. The current world war has become more violent, people's fates are becoming even more tragic, because Zhilin Tolstoy finally achieved a good result of escaping from prison, but Zhilin Makanin was eventually beaten to death by people he cared about and loved in all possible ways, which became an absurd situation.

In V. S. Makanen's work, the nature of the structure of the artistic conflict is more important than the development of the plot itself, and this structure largely assumes the function of directly conveying the thematic meaning. As an example, take the novels "Where the sky met with the hills" and "A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle." In fact, both works have a unique two-layer structural scheme: by creating an explicit structure, the author constructs an implicit structure that violates the causal correlation of the explicit structure. It is at this hidden structural level, which is easy to overlook, that the author violates the "law of formation and transformation of energy" on the surface of the work and achieves the rhetorical idea of mirroring: the disclosure of a conflict that is self–existent and paradoxical ^{[18, p. 199]}.

The novel "Where the Sky and the Hills Converged" is implicit and profound, reflecting changes in human emotions and the world, showing the influence of modern industrial civilization on the human soul and cultural traditions. The impact of the novel expresses the author's regret over the gradual loss of the precious cultural heritage of the Russian people and the indifference of human nature. In the novel, the author gives us the basis for such a conclusion ^[19].

At the beginning of the novel, the author for the first time shows the sadness of the protagonist Bashilov through descriptions of behavior and expressions such as "hold your head and be silent for a long time", "frowning face", "gray hair", etc. Then the author describes the former beauty and current decline of the hometown of the protagonist Bashilov, and tells the story of salvation, which is impossible to achieve this by creating an image of the savior ^[19]. Under the guidance of such a narrative direction, we can easily form the logical meaning of the plot, namely: villagers – abandonment – legacy. This trend makes us more sympathetic to Bashilov's inability to save money.

"A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle" is also a work with mirror–reflecting accusations. The novel uses a first-person narrative perspective and uses "telling your own story" (the character is both the narrator and the main character) to create a realistic experience of the interrogation process for us. At the beginning of the novel, the reader is interrogated, and the interrogation is described from the defendant's point of view, creating a tense and confrontational context for the reader.

The work "A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle" uses a strategy of repeating details. These small details may seem unrelated to the main story, but if you put them in the context of the text as a whole, you can see the reason for their existence ^[20].

Through a series of measures such as leading the investigation, a combination of force and gentleness, rough treatment, violation of logic, incitement and persuasion, as well as hypocrisy, the interrogators "completely exposed and tore apart the "I" of the person being tried until the person was just a blank slate, until they understood everything details until their identity is destroyed."^[20] At the same time, their level of cruelty is also extremely surprising. They will get a sense of accomplishment, and then a kind of pleasure, because the people on trial are covered in bruises and blood. However, the same tormentors who go crazy immediately after the interrogation return to their normal humanity as soon as they leave the group. This is evidenced by fleeting details about the interrogator's kind nature, which the author often describes when the intensity of the interrogation reaches its maximum.

The main character of the novel "Underground, or the Hero of Our Time" Petrovich is a failed underground writer who has a unique and alternative temperament and a desire for individuality, sexual freedom and the right to choose life. He does not accept the systems of the past and is equally incompatible with the new order after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having failed to integrate into society, he had to change his lifestyle and relations with society ^[17]. The artistic conflict of this hero is described in the form of self-expression and resistance. He committed a murder he couldn't believe. Such heroes are not destined to find their place in society, and their lives and fate are sad.

Petrovich has the features of a New Age Russian man. From his appearance and thoughts, it can be said that he is an urban representative of the lower class, a homeless man whose name is unknown and rejected by society. Like some heroes of existential literature, names are superfluous for them, they are victims of society and time. However, this typical figure from the bottom of society can easily become a murderer. Empty judgments and unimaginative torments were the basis of his life. The main character is the same lonely cynic with a broken personality, a psychopath, tortured by life, causing people pity ^[17].

In this work, V. S. Makanin creates a negative image of a tired and outdated character, in which there is nothing new. Such underground people are representatives of the urban bottom and are today the new capital of Russia. Beggars in the era of initial accumulation. They consider marginality as an independently chosen state of existence ^{[21, p. 8]}.

The main feature of the artistic conflict in the works of V. S. Makanin, according to M.F. Amusin, is that "the life reality familiar to the reader is infected with a fantastic, unthinkable assumption or "alienated" with the help of grotesque techniques, hyperboles, transfer to another chronotope" ^{[18, p. 256]}.

Conflict also plays a decisive role in relation to the plot, the theme of the work ("the conflict that arises in the work as the driving force of its plot and the link that combines the plot and plot of the work with its theme"), its ideas. But to clarify the writer's ideological position, it is not enough to know which conflict he has chosen and which social forces are in a state of collision, but it is necessary to determine the resolution of the conflict (which should correspond to a proving social pattern: an artistic conflict is a model of a life conflict), in particular which force and how it won. And that is why it is advisable to say that no conflict embodies the main idea (for a long time this idea prevailed in literary criticism), and thanks to the conflict, the idea of the work is revealed, thus outlining its functional purpose.

Over the past twenty years, the publication of each of V. S. Makanin's works has caused a huge resonance among readers and critics, and the appreciation of Makanin in society continued to grow: in 1993, he became famous for "A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle" and received the Booker Prize for Russian novels. In 1999, he became a laureate of the Russian State Literary Prize for "The Caucasian Prisoner" and "Underground, or the Hero of Our Time." In 2008, he received the "Masterpiece" award for "Asan". In addition, he is also the recipient of important international literary prizes such as the Moscow-Pennet Prize and the Pushkin Prize (established by the Chopfer Foundation). In 2008, Makanin's novel "The Caucasian Prisoner" was filmed (the film was called "Prisoners"), and a play of the same name based on his novel "A River with a Fast Current" was staged at the Moscow Art Theater. These films and performances were warmly received by the audience.

Conclusion. Artistic conflict is a model of life conflict that: 1) it is anthropocentric in nature, that is, the participants are specific characters devoid of unambiguous interpretation, or generalized images that are subject to different interpretations; 2) it acts as an immanent artistic and constructive element of the work; 3) it has dominant evaluative and aesthetic functions for the researcher, and didactic and cathartic functions for the reader. This necessitated a deep study of the evolution of artistic conflict in the works of the Russian writer V. C. Makanin.

V. S. Markanin is a modern Russian intellectual and keeper of traditional culture. In his early works, he described the mediocrity of Soviet society, and in later works he drew attention to the lives of ordinary people and banality. His novels and short stories are diverse in genres and characters. The structure of his narrative works often goes beyond the text itself and contains a writer's understanding of the world, life and art. The writer breaks the traditional structural structure of artistic conflict – the habit of establishing a closed plot solution, and then disassembles the way of thinking by completing the plot and ideological narrative within the category of deterministic thinking and translates the meaning of the conflict to the reader. Understanding the essence of the conflict achieves the effect of mirroring, revealing the opposition between the "true self" and the "false self". Moreover, in this implicit structure, it is also noticeable how the author reveals to a certain extent the reasons for the meaning of the work itself.