The Image of a Hill in the Poetic Picture of the World of D. Samoilov and V. Dudarev: Ontological and Cultural Aspects

Russian poetry is an integral part of the national spiritual culture, since in the poetic text the historical reality is refracted and the search for super-meanings, the ontological plan and the national cosmos are displayed. In the core of the study there are two poems of the fundamentally different writing style by poets David Samoilov and Valery Dudarev, but united by the image of the hill in their works. This image is viewed from ontological positions, read in a branched cultural-historical context, as well as perceived through the prism of the philosophy of life – death in its national version. The image of the hill opens Samoilov’s collection “Voices Behind the Hills” and is a symbolic border between the “living” and the “dead”. The image of the hill, personifying Thanatos’ space, becomes the main one in Dudarev’s final poem “Little Song” of the 1990s. This metaphysical symbol is consonant with the anxious mood of the outgoing era. The study is based on a holistic analysis of a literary text using the structural-typological, comparative, system-integrated research methods. These methods illuminate the ontological significance of the hill image, demonstrating its semantic tension and significance for the work of both poets.