The ontology and poetics of non-fiction prose of Svetlana Alexievich (‘Chernobyl prayer. A chronicle of the future’)

The beginning of the 21st century is characterized by the flourishing of narrative forms combining the features of fiction and documentary prose. The emergence of the cycle Voices of Utopia written by S. Alexievich became a kind of apotheosis of this process. The article analyzes genre peculiarities of one of the works from the cycle - Chernobyl Prayer. A Chronicle of the Future, and reveals the distinctive features of the writer’s creative manner and orientation. The Chronicle is based on polyphony - it contains memories of numerous eyewitnesses to the Chernobyl disaster. The inner rhythm and intonation are organized by the introduction of monologues and choirs into the structure of the work. However, the main ‘voice’, which forms the main emotive content, is the ‘voice’ of the author. The emotional component in S. Alexievich’s creative system acts as a meaning-forming factor and reflects the view of history as a concept of tragedy. Genre properties of the tragifarce reinforce the feeling of a tragic predestination, and the absurdity of human existence. The ambivalent nature of the serious and ridiculous reveals the crisis consciousness of the heroes, who try to find a way out of the boundaries of the existing ‘anti-world’ or escape from the objective reality. The compositional integrity of the work, which reveals the internal connections of the motivic organization, also contributes to conveying the author’s idea. The leading motif of the chronicle is the existential one. The ontological essence of existence is expressed in the philosophy of a lonely and doomed existence, permeated with the feelings of fear and death. After the terrible tragedy, Chernobyl became a symbol of the ‘land of the dead’ and mournful silence. A Chronicle of the Future is a futurological warning about the possible tragic dangers accompanying the development of society and a reminder of the fatal consequences.