Father’s memory about the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 in V. Sotnikov’s novel Emma’s Smile

Statement of the problem. The article is devoted to the problem of a memory about the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 in contemporary literature, in particular, in Vladimir Sotnikov’s novel Emma’s Smile. This is the novel about a father who endured the War and a son speaking on his behalf. The purpose of the article is to consider the creative way treating war memories and to reveal the devices for creation of the image of the Great Patriotic War in the novel. Methodology (materials and methods). The article employs the system-structural method and the elements of the comparative typological analysis. Review of scholarly literature on the issue. The emphasis is put on the image of pneumatosphere (in terminology of N.L. Leiderman) and on the subject construction of the work: the protagonist reincarnating into his father thinks, reflects, sees the outer world, and endures events, as if all this has happened to him; there is an illusion that the hard and dreadful truth about the war is shown and narrated by the first-hand participant of the events. Research results. The mystic ‘veyaniye’ (developments), sophistic basis, sensation of God, images of angels having the appearance of people encountered in the war fields – all this paradoxically combines with savage pictures, ‘trench truth’, the tragic love story and philosophic reflections of already mature protagonist. Conclusions. Sotnikov’s novel develops some traditions of the front-line lyrical story (the combination of naturalism and lyrical expression, the moral conflict, the humane-centric inspiration); on the other hand, its aphoristic nature, the dynamics of a search for answers to global questions that determine the plot, and its parable form allow us to attribute this work to intellectual prose. The theme of a memory is crucial in this work. The memory is both salutary and traumatic, where those who died are revived. The thickening memory resembles the creation of the world. This memory is not only individual and socially-historic, but also patrimonial.