Artistic ethnography of novel by V. Sangi "Marriage of Kevongs"

The article analyzes the novel by the Nivkh writer V. Sangi “The Marriage of the Kevongs”. An attempt is made to study the ethnographic aspects of the content of the novel in order to explain how the author managed to reach the very depth of the Nivkh social and historical life in all its contradictions. Big part of the text consists of ceremonies, conspiracies, proverbs, songs that have the most direct significance for the disclosure of the main conflict. This mood of the novel on the “ethnographic context” allowed V. Sangi not only to convey the specifics of national life, recreate ethnotypic characters, reveal the psychology of the Nivkhs and the whole pattern of tribal life, but also to build the main conflict. It is associated with the problem of the survival of the kind, and is associated with the problem of responsibility for the fate of the kind and its continuation. The dramatic resolution of this issue has an impact on the novel finale, which has an open character.