“Family thought” as a genre-forming category in the epic heritage of Marina Stepnova (on the example of the novel Garden)

The article aims to reveal the specifics of the implementation of the family theme in the novel Garden by the Russian writer Marina Stepnova. The research is based on the text of the novel and works of modern Russian literary scholars. Methods of literary hermeneutics, intertextual analysis, as well as comparative historical and structural methods were applied in the course of the research. The main and secondary images are analyzed; works cited or introduced into the context of the romantic space are identified. The problem of relationships between different generations and spouses in the family is solved in the novel based on the history of the Boryatinsky family and the Anna estate. The first meeting of the Boryatinskys with the garden and the last - cutting it down for pastures - practically create a chronological framework within which the pathos of the novel changes. The presence in the text of numerous insertions of an advancing or retarding character, connecting various thematic layers, is indicated. The writer seeks to demonstrate the constant change in the role of masculine and feminine principles in storylines as they develop. The technique by which the author of the novel combines an emotional description of landscapes and situational reasoning with the direct speech of the main and secondary characters is revealed. The special character of lyrical digressions, which translate the narration into the mainstream of the romantic style, is emphasized. The author of the novel often correlates the depicted with the images and symbols that appear in the works of the classics of Russian literature (A.P. Chekhov, L.N. Tolstoy, etc.). Tracing the fate of her heroes almost to death, Stepnova describes in detail the historical context of what is happening and gives an exact dating of the events. This feature, inherent mainly in the genre of the epic novel, testifies to new aspects of the family chronicle of the 21st century. The author of the article concludes that the portrayal of the Boryatinsky family and the fate of Russia as a garden that has experienced flourishing, abundance, and gradual decline, right up to destruction, makes it possible to define Stepnova’s novel as a family chronicle. By introducing historical figures (Alexander III, the Ulyanov family, Blank), significant events (cholera riot), and references to Alexander Ulyanov in the final episode, the writer pushes the boundaries of the family chronicle genre, evoking the reader’s memories of the historical transformations of the new era.