THE FAMILY NARRATIVE IN THE NOVEL “BUKOVA ZEMLYA” [BEECH LAND] BY MARIYA MATIOS

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to define “family narrative” term; to analyze its structure as well as typological features in “BukovaZemlya” [Beech Land]. Panorama-novel covering 225 years” by M. Matios published in 2019.

Methods have been designed in compliance with the key principles of narratology (particularly, works by Roland Barthes, GérardGenette, Yury Lotman, Vladimir Propp, Wolf Schmid, etc), the inter-relation of narration types as well as the implemented formsof memory’s reproduction.

Results. The author of the research has suggested a definition of “family narrative” term as a form of transformation of cultural,historical and communicative memory. The author has identified and analyzed its structure, key functions, typological and individualfeatures using “Bukova Zemlya” novel by M. Matios. The text of the novel is built as a linear narrative of four families during 225 yearsin XVIII-XX centuries at the territory of Bukovyna (currently, in the South-West of Ukraine). According to G. Genette’s typology,the impartiality of the story is achieved via conducting a narration on behalf of a heterodiegetic narrator in an extradiegetic situation.Combination of a family and a historical narratives is typologically manifested through detailed descriptions of ancestry trees; familystories; ethnography-styled descriptions of customs and every-day living of Hutsuls [an ethnic group living in Caprathian mountains of Ukraine or nearby]. The author also mentions well-known historical figures, uses testimonies of the individuals who lived in thosetimes found in archive sources on the First World War, protests, rallies and riots in 1918; describes the events of the Second World War,anti-Soviet Resistance in Bukovyna and finishes the novel with the events of the War in Donbas in 2014. Following the classificationapproach by G. Genette, M. Matios applies an internal focalization of a plural type. In particular, the views of the various charactersare presented from the perspective of a heterodiegenetic narrator. For example, one of the novel’s chapters describes a cross-cuttingtheme of war simultaneously both as viewed by a peasant, Dariy Berehovchuk, and by an ambassador, Nikolay Vasylko. The familynarrative includes specific typology features as “sine qua non” components of the plot: birth, marriage, re-location (home/village/city/home country), hardships (diseases, famines, the Holocaust, wars), death. The author’s specific elements of her view upon the familynarrative include the themes of Land, the God and belief, Language, Ethnicity (including the topic of multiple ethnic groups living inBukovyna). The novel also has such popular elements for a family narrative as images of twins (or twin strangers) and some borrowedtraditional features of folk epic tales: cases of “magical recognition” and “magical prophecy” for a future of a kin.

Conclusions. The family narrative of M. Matios’ novel includes both typology and individual features. It is built in compliancewith the structure of the internal focalization of plural type. The narration is presented as conducted by a heterodiegentic narrator ina extradiegenetic situation. Hence, an impartiality of a narration and a subjectivity of a discourse in present time provides for realizationof “I”-presence of a reader and avoiding idealization and mythologization of a family narrative, which are quite traditional for it.