The evolution of female images of modern Caucasian women's prose ( based on the material of the novel by M. Akhmedova "Stone Girl. Water")

Zubtsova Yuliya Olegovna Lecturer, postgraduate student of the Department of Linguistics, Russian Philology, Literary and Journalistic Skills of Pyatigorsk State University 357700, Russia, Stavropol'skii krai, g. Kislovodsk, ul. Peshekhodnaya, 3, - julia.zubtzova@yandex.ru

For a long time, Russian literature about the Caucasus was presented exclusively from a male point of view: men wrote about men, and women, if present, then only as secondary heroes. Stephanie Sandler wrote about this very accurately, trying to understand the meaning of the role of a Circassian girl in Pushkin's "Caucasian Prisoner": a woman "who says nothing and, in fact, is nothing." The reason for this masculinization of the Caucasian topos can be called A.S. Pushkin, who during his first exile, being admired by Byron, brought pronounced orientalist features to the image of the Caucasus. The images of the prisoner and the mountaineer introduced by him continued to be actively used until the "new military prose" – literature about the Chechen wars of Babchenko, Prilepin, Gelasimov, Sadulaev, Karasev, Ibragimov and many others ^[9].

The new female names that appeared at the turn of the 2010s in the literature about the Caucasus - Alice Ganieva, Marina Akhmedova, Polina Zherebtsova, Olga Lizunkova, Asya Umarova – "a small Caucasian trend", as the critic Vladislav Tolstov called it, began to focus on the description of everyday life and peaceful life against the background of war and terrorism, characteristic for this region. Whether religious conflicts in Dagestan or the bombing of Grozny, women authors show the social problems of the Caucasus through the dramatic fates of their heroines, bringing together everything they themselves witnessed into one image, thus striving to understand the situation in the Caucasus, assess it and, based on their own life experience, find exit paths. Of course, the description of a typical Caucasian way of life is unusual for a layman accustomed to modern life in a continuous information flow – our life is radically different from life in a small mountain Dagestan village, "similar to a large anthill made up of many stone cells" ^[10]. However, such an inside view of the Caucasus creates a demand for modern national literature in Russian society, which turns out to be extremely important for modern Russian literature as a whole. There is no doubt that the artistic texts of modern women's prose demonstrate a wide range of completely different styles, manners, plots and, of course, reflect ideas about the role and place of women in the world, as well as accepted and existing stereotypes in society about the relationship between men and women, while creating the ideal that a woman aspires to, the absence of which is keenly felt in society.

The greatest interest in the framework of our research is the work of Marina Akhmedova, a reporter, journalist, author of seven novels, one of which ("Diary of a Suicide Bomber. Hadija") He was nominated for the Booker Prize. It was after him that the writer was awarded the title of a specialist in the Caucasus – a special region of Russia in which Russian shortcomings and vices are maximally concentrated. Due to the limited territory, they are so hyperbolized that their description in Akhmedova's novels takes a grotesque form.

The opinions of critics are directly opposite: some like the texts of M. Akhmedova. They tend to believe that the artistic elements present in them, which directly depend on modern world trends, help to create that invisible presence effect inherent in Akhmedova, an innovator in the development of modern Caucasian themes. She skillfully pulls away from the narrative, remaining a bystander. While the second group of critics led by A. Nabatnikova considers her texts to be overly detailed and "reporter's", but no one undertakes to reproach her for the unreliability of information. Marina Akhmedova agrees with both with journalistic delicacy, arguing that over the years of working at the Russian Reporter, she has learned to describe only the reality that she sees herself. In her opinion, an uninteresting text will not attract the reader, and in order for it to become attractive, it is necessary to work "with pure thoughts" – this idea came to mind when she was working on the sensational novel about the war "Lessons of Ukrainian". Later, another "fascinating novel with deep psychologism" "Stone, which quickly lost popularity, was published. Girl. Water", this time dedicated to the Caucasus with its unusual traditions and customs for the Russian reader – "ethnographic exoticism", as V.Avchenko put it ^[1]. After the publication, which caused a lot of controversy among critics, Akhmedova said that she would not write about the Caucasus anymore. Not at all because her novel was called boring, but because she no longer wants to live "Caucasian melodramas".

According to the author himself, this is a novel about love and jealousy and at the same time about the expansion of modern Islamism, about the victory of Sharia over adat and over the constitution of the Russian Federation – a modern "Caucasian text" cannot but be socially loaded. In an interview, Marina Akhmedova mentioned that her books are not about the Caucasus, but about the people living there, the "center of gravity" has been shifted to the artistic recreation of the spectrum of emotions and experiences of individuals who have encountered a number of difficulties in their life, caused, among other things, by the clash of different religions and worldviews. Akhmedova, as many critics note, managed to show the difficult situation of the region through the fate of the people, in particular women. The author reveals an acute social problem – the spread of extremism in a small mountain village of Dagestan, focusing on the fate of two teachers – Jamila and Maryam – and not on the underground worker Rasul Beard. Of course, the problems of image representation are considered to the extent that it is necessary to reveal the ideological content, evolution and typology of female images according to their social status. To fully represent the world of women, it is important for women authors to show the atmosphere of everyday life that surrounds the heroines – the reader receives a fairly detailed description of the everyday activities of rural residents living in the mountains: they sweep snow from sloping roofs, gather at godekan, listening to elders, celebrate graduation in a village club that used to be a mosque.

        Such a non-standard approach to the disclosure of acute social issues, despite the traditional nature of the theme, plot and composition, cannot but encourage the author to search for new genre and aesthetic possibilities. And here Marina Akhmedova manages to combine the classical literary form with topical journalism.

The novel begins with the phrase: "The teacher's daughter is closed!", which allows us to conclude that one of the many storylines will be related to religion. Indeed, there is no hero who would not mention Shaitan or Allah or would not express his opinion about the new imam.          Already on the first pages, the main character reveals her trick, which she came up with as a child: in order for Allah to hear you better, you have to stand almost on the edge of the roof, put out your palms and wait for the first drop to fall ^{[2, 12]}. However, she does not understand why she should wear a hijab and wrap herself in black, "like crows", changing her national, which has been weaving for centuries, to "rags of alien Arab women" ^{[2, 103]}, thereby becoming involved with a different type of culture. She does not share the point of view of her former student, Idris, who, having converted to radical Islam, took the name Abdul Salam, and when Jamila gave a saadak (donation) to the disabled Abdulchik, he pointed out to her a mistake: a needy person should not beg. However, Jamila does not seek to obediently follow the advice of the new imam. She wonders why every action should be directed only in the name of the Almighty, for the sake of rewards, and not out of compassion.             

The main character, teacher Jamila, whom writer and screenwriter Aglaya Nabatnikova called "colorless" ^[4], is sentimental and helpless in conflicts. A neighbor who came to visit the Central Committee calls her closed and secretive. It is no coincidence that Mitya Samoilov calls her the common sense of the village – she firmly occupies the position of an observer and undertakes to judge everything that happens around her ^[6]. "Therefore, I made my choice a long time ago – I will become a silent observer of the happiness and misery of others ^[2,52]. Jamila's neighbor, little Maryam, once called her the most beautiful. But the girl was skeptical about this, because even her own mother considered her ugly – she has a narrow face, frightened bird eyes ^[2,118]. According to Jamila, you should not believe in female beauty, it is short-lived: day after day it is erased by childbirth and hard work around the house. "In the mountains, beauty does not last long on women's faces, it is like a pattern on captured pottery" ^{[2, 45]}. Moreover, she envies female beauty, comparing girlish smiles with a pinch of young carnations. Added to the tsken, it interrupts the taste of the other ingredients. According to Jamila, the hardships of life will erase the smiles from the faces of haughty beauties, turning them into ordinary, weary women. ^[2,45]. It was Jamila who first noticed the beauty of Zuhra when she let her hair down – in the tenth grade, when the Soviet Union won the final victory over the chokhto scarf. Uncombed hair was considered a sign of promiscuity. Jamila's heart was trembling: even if Rasul did not notice her beauty, but he noticed and followed her home like a staggering bear, obeying a strong call.

Despite the fact that she is a good hostess (even other teachers admit this), Jamila is still unmarried at the age of forty. Is her heart so petrified that she doesn't want to hold a baby in her arms? Jamila admits that "to die", not to feel anything, looking at those who are happily married, cost her a lot of work. She has been in love with Rasul's classmate since childhood, who did not notice her and married another. And now Rasul is a bald bandit with a black beard. He lives in the forest and by force inclines the villagers to religion. Jamila doesn't like it – she reacts anxiously to any deviation from the canonical tradition, is wary of changes in her native village – but Rasul is not afraid. Even when he came to her house uninvited to clarify the "slippery moment" – the appointment of a teacher as a school principal, she just folded her arms and turned away.

Jamila's recollection of the school graduation is very revealing. It was held in the village club, where there used to be a mosque, and the Koran was read. Sharip-the teacher asked the children to take off their shoes at the entrance, because he believed that there was no place for zurna and tambourine, which extremely angered Jamila's father, a party worker. He made it clear that those who took off their shoes would regret it.

Acutely aware of the breakdown of the national matrix, which has lost its archetypal stability, Jamila realizes the redundancy of faith in the inviolability of traditional foundations. The invisible confrontation "school – forest" existed for a long time, however, as soon as Maryam put on the hijab, it became more noticeable: Rasul, who by that time had become a respected person in the village, came to Jamila's class – gradually he began to play the role of kadiya. Even young people began to gather in mosques to listen to his sermons, although he was not a mullah.

On the first day of school in the new class, Jamila noticed unpleasant changes: the girl did not want to sit next to the boy, having sat motionless for the entire lesson. "Here it is, the influence of parents," Jamila noted to herself, who, brought up according to old traditions, did not see anything wrong with it. Three girls came to the fourth grade in hijabs, hiding their beautiful long hair. This provoked the anger of the director Sadikulakh Magomedovich. Jamila was petrified when he flew into the classroom during the lesson with the police, and demanded to take off the girls' headscarves. Only Maryam, who never respected customs, was able to fight back against him, protecting Jamila's students. Then the father of one of them, Rukiyat, came to the school, demanding to give him the documents: she has nothing to do in such a haram place. Even the sermons of the indisputable authority of Sharip the teacher did not help: when there is not a single knowledgeable person left in the world, people will go astray and mislead others. But the father insisted that Ruqiyat needed to read the Koran and wear a hijab. Later, the school principal called Jamila for a conversation, asking her to talk to the students in hijabs "like a woman." And again, Jamila is outraged: her job is to put knowledge into their heads, and not to take off their scarves!

Akhmedova consciously emphasizes the desire of her characters for the foreign, shows their disappointment in modern reality, thereby recreating the "historical cultural myth" about the Caucasus, which many Kavkaz scholars talk about.

According to the main character, through whose mouth Akhmedova speaks, Islam should not be interfered with secular education, and so far she has not yet met a "wrapped up" woman who has become a great scientist. Yes, Jamila is educated, she graduated from university, and now evil tongues are discussing her marital status, but it was not knowledge that caused the loneliness of the main character.

Next to Jamila there is a brighter character – the green-eyed beauty Maryam (an exact copy of her mother), who wore a hijab for the sake of her lover, for whom she wants to become a second wife. This brave act of a young woman caused confusion among the villagers: their ancestors wore black only on days of mourning. Therefore, the village "flew into the abyss" – the words of the old people lost weight. Maryam works as a head teacher at a school where the director forbids students to come in a hijab, arguing: the educational institution operates according to Russian laws. However, this is not her only rebellion: in the person of Maryam Jamila, she sees the threat of liberation from the power of tradition: she allows herself to paint her nails brightly, wear tight clothes, is the first to confess her love to a man, pushes police officers, defiantly takes off her shoes at the entrance to the former mosque (now a village club). Violation of established norms speaks about the ideological and spiritual problems of the traditional world of the Caucasus and the search for new forms of aesthetic and creative perception of the dialogue of cultures.

Of interest for analysis is another character in the novel – Jamila's mother, who did not love her daughter, who was born with sore legs. "When I was born, my mother, seeing my feet, was the first to bury me in warm blankets and mattresses" ^[2,40]. All her life, Jamila wants to know if she uttered the terrible words at the first sight of the newborn: "It would be better if I gave birth to a stone!" ^[2,188]. Although Marina Akhmedova does not give a detailed description of the character of this woman, we understand that her heart is made of stone. She does not love her daughter, does not love her husband, does not love her mother-in-law. "I do not know who my mother loved," admits Jamila" ^[2,13]. Does the father love her because she is Jamila, created by Allah in a single and unique copy, or because she is the only child created by him? ^[2,55].

In difficult moments, Jamila walks on the river, on the rocks. The stones have become an extension of me. Petrified. Until the pain in my heels and knees made me forget about the pain in my heart. Ah, how sweet the pain can be, silencing the soul and heart ^[2,52].

K.K. Sultanov in the article "Difficult entry into Modernity: tradition as a problem and a national narrative" ^[8], published in the fifth issue of "Questions of Literature" in 2020, draws attention to Jamila's devotion to her native village: in order to "come to life", it was enough for her to touch the warm walls of her parents' house. Her consciousness is dominated by the so-called generic memory. That is why it was hard for her to go to study in the city – far from the usual way of life. Even her father, who believed that Jamila's sick legs would be able to walk sooner or later, did not believe that Jamila would be able to live alone in the city, far from the tsken, wild cherry, which cannot be torn a lot – the spirits will punish, and the "natural pictures that have not changed for centuries" familiar from childhood, Jamila's mentality not only has it not weakened, but it has also grown stronger. It is worth paying tribute to Akhmedova's writing skills, who managed to recreate the subtleties of the ethnosphere, skillfully describing the landscapes and lifestyle of the mountain ethnic community. With bitterness, the main character recalls the times when "both vice and virtue went under a burka, and in order to distinguish one from the other, you have to wait for something to happen." Then they behaved the same way, even the burkas were sculpted by one master. Years passed, the village did not change, and people began to deceive each other more, Fatima's husband promised to take a second wife as soon as she gave birth to his second girl, and when the fourth appeared, he did not go to take her to the maternity hospital, passing through relatives that it would be better if Fatima gave birth to a stone.

Only after growing up and entering the institute in the city, Jamila learned the secret that her mother kept all her life – her father had a Russian mistress. The girl remembered how her parents were swearing – that was the first time she heard her mother yelling at her father. Even before her death, she did not forgive her husband: "You can call that Russian in my place!" ^[2,249].

There is another secret in the novel that has remained undisclosed – a green notebook that my father left after his death to his best friend Sharip, a teacher. Jamila decided not to hand it over after the incident on Godekan related to the construction of the tunnel. Sharip disappeared after the villagers refused to leave their homes, which prevented construction. And he returned when Rasul burned down two houses of the owners of the construction site.

Akhmedova is in no hurry to dedicate the reader to these vicissitudes that happened before the birth of the main character. So, we do not know Jamila's illness, because of which she has weak legs (because of the water), only in the last pages we learn that her mother loved Sharip, but married Jamila's father. And what is written in the ill-fated notebook that Jamila hid in the trunk after her father's death will also remain a mystery to us.

Akhmedova does not hide, it seems, only recipes of traditional Caucasian cuisine – tsken, miracle, bread. I want to read the description of the cooking process itself with a colorful accent: first, before preparing the dough, you need to wash your hands thoroughly, since the blessing of Allah will not come down on dirty bread, and, accordingly, the soul will gradually "get dirty". And if you cook bread in dirty dishes, thereby not respecting it, there will never be prosperity in the house. In April-May, until the grass is dry, it is best to cook a miracle – cut the roots from the grass, rinse, finely chop and add egg, onion and walnut. Residents of the village even gossip, eating juicy pieces rolled into a tube, and showing hospitality, they heat up a tsken – a three–tiered pie with potatoes, meat and cottage cheese in a frying pan.

Such close attention to the peculiarities of cooking, a scrupulous description of the culinary delights of the national cuisine can be attributed to the specific features of "women's prose", which is distinguished by an interest in everyday topics. For the author, the transfer of taste, color and smell is of great importance – such details play an important role in the picture of the world peculiar to a woman.

Drawing a conclusion about the author's vision of the Caucasus of representatives of modern Caucasian women's prose, we must first of all indicate that the approach to one degree or another depends on the features of the linguistic personality inherent in the writer, which, in turn, depend on social, age, national parameters, and therefore the literature of this direction needs a deep rethinking from the point of view of the modern picture of the world.