Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “Hypertext” About the Female Warrior. Article I

Abstract

This article deals with Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “hypertext” about the female warrior, i.e. with the totality of her manifestations in the works of the writer and the semantic continuum that they form. This type of character is defined as a heroine with outstanding physical abilities (such as strength, horse-riding and shooting skills, etc. - and also great beauty), a strong, proud personality, persistence, ability to fight back, determination to gain the upper hand, to win at all costs - especially in the game of power and armed conflict with the male character that is in love with the heroine and/or is loved by her. The author identifies Zamyatin’s works in which the woman warrior appears, analyzes the plot functions and the characteristic motif complex associated with this image. The author demonstrates that the female warrior represents a very frequent type of heroine in Zamyatin’s works: the image appears at the beginning of his career as a writer, in the short story “Kryazhi” (1915), and accompanies him until the end, manifesting itself in the screenplays written in the 1930s. The author reveals that a specific variant of the plot featuring the female warrior is implemented in Zamyatin’s works: the heroine is shown as equal in strength with the male character, and the test of power happens, in particular in the form of a literal duel. Whatever its outcome is and whoever wins, the storyline usually finishes with the death of one or both characters - either during the combat or as its remote consequence. While the type of the plot is usually the same, the female character itself shows a wide variety: there are Valkyrie-like heroines (Ildegonda in the play Atilla), polenitsas from Russian bylina songs (such as Nastasya Mikulishna in the screenplay “Dobrynya” or Marya in “Kryazhi”), Mongolian women warriors (Borte, Ulek), and even contemporary heroines of this type (Zinaida in the screenplay “The God of Dance”). Usually such characters are attributed in Zamyatin to the legendary epic past or rooted in “folk archaics”; they belong to the rural world, to the Russian village. The constant topoi and the evolution of the female warrior in Zamyatin’s artistic works are revealed; in particular, such motifs as love-hate, test of strength (in the form of a duel or a competition), mutual intendedness of two “strong ones” and their tragic non-encounter are considered. The author notes that the supervalue of the female warriors in Zamyatin’s works is love, while for some other writers of the Silver Age, for instance, for Marina Tsvetaeva or Lyubov Stolitsa, such values were female agency, independence, control over one’s life, freedom, or even spiritual salvation. The play Atilla and its heroine Ildegonda are analyzed in this article in particular detail; the sources of this image are revealed.