Some folklore features of poetics of A. Kondratiev's novel “On the banks of the Yaryn river”

The article is devoted to analysis of folklore features of A. A. Kondratyev’s novel “On the banks of the Yaryn river”, in particular the influence of poetics of the folk non-fiction prose (folk stories) and fairy-tales on the form and content of this “demonological” novel (as it was characterized by the author himself). It is possible to claim that on the one hand, A. Kondratyev applied here the ethnographic filling of non-fiction stories and on the one hand the laws of formation of a fantastic world of the magic fairy-tale on the other hand. The special attention is paid to a problem of “borders” that is the main law of the magic fairy-tale, a clear distinction between “one’s own” and “someone else’s”. In this novel the Yaryn river serves as a border and seems the contamination of the real Goryn and Yarun rivers and an archetypic image of the River. Besides, one more law of fantastic poetics is considered in the novel. It is the requirement to keep one’s word and not to break a ban, because it is such an infraction that is the engine of a plot of the novel and that leads characters to death, although death in the novel is not the end of life but transition to another state of soul, as far as the characters of the novel can exist in three forms: a man, evil spirits and the undead. In such a manner, the eternity, constancy and basic repeatability of the world “On the banks of the Yaryn river” are formed.