THE CONCEPTION OF THE HERO IN THE COLLECTION OF A.T. AVERCHENKO’S SHORT STORIES "THE NOTES OF THE SIMPLE-MINDED"

Abstract

The features of the embodiment of A.T. Averchenko’s personality in the collection of short stories "The notes of the Simple-Minded" have been discussed in the article. This found expression in the creation of a new type of a tragic hero - a “little man” who lost his homeland but who is extremely sensitive to the loss of life stability and strives to find himself in the new conditions of being. The author's conception of the hero has been substantiated; according to this conception new cultural preconceptions are impossible without striving to overcome the gap of the hereditary cultural ties between generations, to restore the spiritual and moral ideals of the pre-revolutionary times and to recognize the destructive impact of the foreign cultural environment. It has been established that the author’s outlook reveals in the committed and artistic evolution of the hero who turned from a naive fool into a cruel sage and a cynic person. The author’s reading of a new type of a human’s solitude tragedy – a descendant from «another circumstance», another culture, a loner among persons who don’t understand him and he doesn’t understand them has been proved. The originality of the interpretation of Averchenko’s tragical and grotesque hero who finds some new ways of forming the comic at the content level and works form has been substantiated. The constants of the "little man’s" character (melancholy and will, "one's own" and "someone else's") who strives to keep his own spirituality, who is able to oppose the epoch’s upheavals for the sake of personal freedom have been established.