The symbolic image of mother in the modern drama of the Volga region(the case of Chuvash and Mari literatures)

The article examines national symbolic images in the drama of the Volga region (using the material of the Chuvash and the Mari literatures) with the special focus on identifying the authors’ common and specific ways of reflecting the national picture of the world. The analysis revealed that the playwrights give a special place among the fundamental images to the image of mother, which is associated with the images of house, village or homeland. The study was aimed at determining the place and significance of these images in the artistic system of the modern national drama of the Volga region using the historical and cultural analysis and the comparative method as the most relevant research tools. In regional literary studies, there are works addressing the symbolic images in individual national literatures, but there are no comparative studies, which confirms the novelty of this research. This line of research helped to reveal common meta-senses characteristic of the Chuvash and Mari literatures. They both use the image of mother as a means of expressing the authors’ stances on contemporary national and moral issues, including the issues of preserving traditions and the spiritual heritage of the people.