N.N. Sadur’s mythopoetic strategy: Zoroastrian code in the play “The pilot”

The article examines N.N. Sadur’s mythopoetic strategy implemented in the play “The Pilot” (2009). In a dramatic work, the peculiarities of mytho-poetics are determined, on the one hand, by the generic specificity of the text, and on the other hand, by the genetic connection between drama and myth, which was noted by Alexander N. Veselovsky. Sadur’s play is characterised by a complex polygenetic nature. Images of everyday life in Moscow at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century determine the level of expression. The level of content correlates with parts of the medieval theory of alchemy, of ancient and Slavic mythology, including views on chaos and primary elements, and, finally, mythological elements borrowed from the works of Nikolai Gogol. Zoroastrianism becomes the integrating element of the play’s mythopoetics. The main conflict of “The Pilot” is the clash of human values. It is based on the mythological dualism embodied in the Zoroastrian code. The confrontation between good and evil, light and darkness correlates with the struggle between the supreme deity Ahura Mazda and his antagonist Angra Mainyu. This pivotal Zoroastrian opposition is supported in the text by the ancient myth of Hyperborea. Despite the outward heterogeneity of these religious and mythological systems, they are internally connected in the play. They act as a “cipher” that reveals the meaning of the main character’s story. N.N. Sadur’s mythopoetic strategy thus inherits the traditions of the creation of neo-mythological “text-myth” by 20th-century writers. Such works are characterised by the heterogeneity of the components of different systems. Although seemingly incompatible, they form a single mythopoetic structure.