For citation:
Martyanova S. A. 2022. “The anthropology of the reader’s experience in the story
Cancer Ward by A. I. Solzhenitsyn”. Tyumen State University Herald. Humanities Research.
Humanitates, vol. 8, no. 2 (30), pp. 47-60. DOI: 10.21684/2411-197X-2022-8-2-47-60
About the author:
Svetlana A. Martyanova,
Cand. Sci. (Philol.), Associated Professor, Head of the Department of Russian and Foreign Philology, Vladimir State University named after Alexander and Nikolay Stoletovs, Vladimir, Russia; martyanova62@list.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6917-0118
Abstract:
This article studies reader’s experience of A. I. Solzhenitsyn a means of characterizing the consciousness and behavior of the characters in the story Cancer Ward. Different researchers have already paid attention to the role of a book, reading, and a person reading verbal and artistic texts in the artistic world (Don Quixote by Cervantes, Eugene Onegin by A. S. Pushkin, Poor Folk by F. M. Dostoevsky, Madame Bovary by G. Flaubert); however, these works were fragmentary. The relevant aspects of 20th century literature, including Solzhenitsyn’s texts, have been studied even less.
The author of this article shows that the appeal to the reader’s experience of the characters is an essential facet of the objective world of the story Cancer Ward. The analysis focuses on the question how a book which has been read becomes a part of a character’s existential and cultural experience, evidence of either their insights, discoveries, or delusions, dead ends. The article substantiates the discussion of the book in the depiction of Solzhenitsyn’s characters from the point of view of cultural anthropology, which studies the relationship of a person with cultural tradition and society, and psychological — with its interest in forms of thinking and communication. Experiences in interpreting what Solzhenitsyn’s characters read are important not only for characterizing individual characters, but also for society as a whole. This article emphasizes that the cultural problems of the Soviet era were due to the “archaeological” type of hermeneutics, which alienated a person from the classical tradition, which is enduringly valuable for the self-determination of a person. There are two types of eventfulness in the narrative organization of the text: plot and existential. A special place in the overall picture belongs to a semi-autobiographical character — Oleg Kostoglotov, whose path from death to resurrection includes the experience of reading and comprehending reality through artistic and philosophical texts.
The methodological foundation of the work includes the approaches developed by comparative
literature, intertext theory, as well as anthropological, historical, and cultural studies.
