The image of a Dog in modern literature: ethnic overtones of different cultures
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2025-4-125-137
World literature includes a large number of texts about dogs. Modern texts differ from ancient ones – in some cases, the image of a dog loses the connotations that are attached to the dog by archaism – a process of demythologization occurs. In others, the image of a dog is ambivalent: along with archaic symbolism (especially in everyday speech), a dog (in literary texts) is depicted anthropomorphically, carries moral codes, and becomes a measure of human empathy. The article considers the image of a dog in different ethnocultural and historical contexts – based on the works of modern writers. The relationship between a person and a dog is presented in the Tuvan context by Maadyr-ool Khovalyg (in three "Hunting Stories" the same tradition is mentioned: turning to the "master of the taiga" for help, but in this situation a person behaves differently in relation to a dog, the dog plays the role of a moral tuning fork); in Ossetian – by the writer Meliton Kazity (the story “Almas” is created in the genre of a dog’s life story – from its birth to death; the historical upheavals of the 20th century and human behavior are given in the indirect receptive speech of a dog, whose image embodied elements of Ossetian mythology and intertextual literary details); in Kazakhstan – by Ilya Odegov (the story, entitled "Sheep", constructs a provocative reading of it, because the main animal in it is not a sheep, but a dog named Lelka, who saved her owner and died); in Europe – by the writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (in the novella by the French-speaking writer, the context is almost global, centered around the Holocaust: the action takes place in Belgium, recalling captivity in the Polish Auschwitz, the intention of the concentration camp is anti-Jewish, salvation comes from the Soviet Red Army; all that is left in the life of the hero Samuel to continue it further is the dog Argos, whose name is a reminiscence of Homer's "Odyssey"); other ethnic contexts are optionally mentioned: Jewish (associated with the mythological concept reflected in the toponym "Year-old Bitch" from the novel "Here Comes the Messiah!" by Dina Rubina), Crimean Tatar (the subject of the narrative in the story "Loneliness" by Ervin Umerov is a dog; the writer entrusted it, an impartial narrator, to report on the trauma of his people – 1944).
Keywords: the image of a dog, Tuvan literature, Ossetian literature, Kazakh literature, French literature, Maadyrool Khovalyg, Meliton Kazity, Ilya Odegov, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, the Holocaust, Dina Rubina, Erwin Umerov
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Issue: 4, 2025
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND LITERATURE OF THE PEOPLES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Pages: 125 — 137
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