Transformation of bestiary images in the poetics of modernism (F. Sologub, K. D. Balmont, V. I. Narbut, D. B. Khetagurov, G. G. Maliev, I. Arnigon)

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to confirm the idea that the interpretation of bestiary images in the Russian and Ossetian literature of the late 19th and the early 20th century from the perspective of their symbolic semantic component occurs in the context of relevant ideas of the specified cultural and historical period. The scientific novelty of the research lies in conducting a joint study of zoographic images in the poems of F. Sologub, K. D. Balmont, V. I. Narbut, D. B. Khetagurov, G. G. Maliev, I. Arnigon and determining commonality in the manifestation of aesthetic attitudes of modernism. It is the first time in the history of Ossetian scientific thought that bestiary themes are covered in the context of inter-literary connections and influences and become the subject of a comprehensive literary analysis. The texts presented reveal the significance of animalistics in the ideosphere of Russian and Ossetian poets in terms of traditional and individual interpretations (typical properties of folklore images, author’s anthropomorphic metaphorics) and the adaptation of animal archetypes in a modernist context (neo-mythologism, exoticism, savagery, doppelgangers). As a result, the research concludes that the animalistic code cannot be interpreted outside national, folklore traditions, cultural context and the author’s personality, when the connotation of bestiary is revealed in multifaceted semantic layers, going far beyond purely faunistic themes.