Symbolics of ‘The White Cloud of Genghis Khan’ by Chinghiz Aitmatov Through the Spectacle of Mythopoetics

Abstract

The presented article is devoted to the most important aspects of the interaction between mythologization and the principles of constructing a symbol in the text structure of original prose fiction. The author attempted to reveal the process of transforming the mythologization and symbolization of the image into one of the conceptual components of the link-building mechanisms in a 'novella towards a novel’ by Chinghiz Aitmatov - ‘The White Cloud of Genghis Khan’. The author focuses on the myth, acting in the structure of the novel ‘The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years’ at the level of symbolic-ideological, idea-bearing, and spatio-temporal paradigm while being aesthetically implemented through composition, plot, image/coding system, certain motives, symbols, and other artistic and aesthetic means and thuswise forming various combining components of cited works into a single structurally whole artistic expression.

Aitmatov's artistic endeavour is characterized by the original focus of the myth in solving such universal ontological issues as ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘betrayal’, ‘meaning of existence’, ‘mystery of death’, etc. Also, to depict the contrast between the eternal universal categories, Aitmatov often resorts to binary opposition. Thus, since the latter performs a structure-forming function in the architectonics of the artwork (determining the dynamics of the plot development), it also helps explain the dynamics and statics of characters and their actions in time and space.  

The article reveals the features of mythopoetic means that perform auxiliary functions of expanding the philosophical, ideological, and original artistic concept of the literary work. The conducted study summarized and identified three ways of considering a symbol as a text-generating and text-binding factor: in terms of peculiarities of the author's writing techniques, from the standpoint of its involvement in the general poetics of the writer, and the point of view of the formation of a literary text’s conceptual and philosophical basis.