The image of a military city in 21st-century Russian literature (based on the material of "Volunteer Romance" by Zakhar Prilepin)

The theme of the city, the image of the city, the semantics and metaphysics of the city, the space of the city, the city and the natural environment, the house and the city, man and the city are issues traditionally raised by literary criticism. The city is "an external environment that the writer resolutely conquers. The city responds with recognition, understanding, and participation. Or, on the contrary, blasphemy, censure, indifference" ^{[9, p. 7]}. According to S. A. Golubkov, "from a semiotic point of view, according to Yu. M. Lotman, "the city, as a complex semiotic mechanism, a generator of culture, can perform this function only because it is a cauldron of texts and codes, differently arranged and heterogeneous, belonging to different languages and different levels." Currently, an intensive study of various aspects of the semiosphere of the city is underway. <...> The semantic facets of the concept of "city" are revealed (the city as a myth, as an ideologeme, as a test, as a cherished goal, as a space of rumor, as a project, as a mirage, as an island of memory, as the center of the Universe (the "axis of the world")" ^{[9, p. 11]}. To confirm this, we will cite a number of studies that address urban issues in a variety of ways: N. A. Balakleets "The city as a place of war: topological models of a military city" ^[4], S. B. Veselova "The city as an image of consciousness and images of the city in consciousness" ^[8], Z. A. Zagulyaeva "The image of a closed city in local poetry (on the example of the city of Ozersk)" ^[11], I. E. Silantieva "The image of a Russian city: based on the materials of L. Carroll's journey to Russia" ^[21], Yu. E. Kozina "The mystical image of the city in a modern Swedish detective story. Crime scene and investigation" ^[12], M. E. Kulyan-Kozionova "The city and its image: discourses of theoretical understanding" ^[15], V. G. Shurina "Mythologization as a means of creating an image of the city" ^[29], I. A. Aizikova "The image of the Siberian city in the essays of N.A. Kostrov" ^[1], O. Osmukhina, A. Tanaseichuk, E. Kazeeva, E. Sharonova "Provincial town chronotope specifications inG. Flauberth's "Madame Bovary"" ^[30] and others.

The list of issues that make up urban issues includes, of course, the issue of artistic interpretation and description of a military city. Modern literature, depicting the history going on in Donbass before our eyes, somehow creates the image of a city surrounded by war.

In Zakhar Prilepin's works on the military theme, such as "Pathologies", "Some will not go to hell", "Militia Romance", the image of the city is one of the central ones in their imaginative system [See. About this: 17; 18; 19; 22; 27; 28]. It is through the description of a military city that Zakhar Prilepin introduces both the characters and the readers to the space of war, and it is through the encounter with a wounded or killed city that the hero and the reader become familiar with the war as the main character. The writer shows how the life of a city is being transformed, which the war has approached or has already entered. His inner state is changing, he ceases to think of himself as a large, self-confident organism, he loses his pre-war integrity, therefore, his habitual appearance is transformed, the outlines and inner state that seemed unchanged disappear. A person, who is an obligatory attribute of the city, is also deformed during the war, because the war and the death that accompanies it, interfering in the world and in life, begin to actively formulate new laws that cannot be resisted.

The integrity of a peaceful city is destroyed during military operations, but almost instantly the paradoxical integrity of a military city is created, because war, destroying one space, immediately forms another, which immediately forms a new behavior and formulates new laws of existence, thinking, emotionality, reaction to what is happening. A vivid picture of the transformation of a peaceful city into a military one is given in V. Troitskaya's novella "The Donetsk Sea": "Everything started abruptly. Donetsk was changing before our eyes, as if it had become a living organism – restless, breathing, huge. Something in the city grew, accumulated, and then almost visibly hung in the air. It was fear, and hope, and confusion, and resentment, and carelessness, and helplessness, and some kind of inexplicable, but already gigantic force. And each person had something of their own growing and rising inside, and the city was seething, seething, boiling. <...> By March, Donetsk had exploded. People took to the streets with Russian flags and Soviet banners, on weekends they filled squares and streets, they shouted, they were indignant..." ^{[24, p. 81]}. Donetsk's expectation, desire, and premonition of returning to Russia, filled with hope and joy, are replaced in the story by a description of the city that was bombed: "Donetsk was empty. People were running. They beat the city" ^{[24, p. 117]}; dad "carefully placed two grandmother's icons on the dressing table in the hallway, and put a large cardboard box on the floor, smelling of burning. Inside were: a scratched globe, a red velvet album in which grandma pasted family photos, old toys and books, many books – a memory of his and her childhood. <...> The shell hit near the house! The windows are broken, but nothing… And in the evening, Aunt Dina came and said that a shell had hit the house of their neighbors, the Semenovs. Their house burned down, their orchard burned down, Nikolai Petrovich and Galina Sergeevna also burned down – together, at night, right in their bed" ^{[24, p. 121]}. V. Troitskaya conveys the metamorphoses of the mood of the city, which she controls by a common thought, a common movement and mood.

In The Autumn of the Volunteer, G. Kubatian alternates between descriptions of Paris, terrestrial and underground, and the Donetsk frontline (trenches, basements, battlefield): "The windows of jewelry and fashion stores on Paris streets looked like office aquariums with exotic fish: expensive, beautiful and not particularly necessary. The light from the shop windows fell on a square with wooden benches" ^{[14, p. 168]} and ‒ "There was a battle going on next to us – Wagner's Solar was stormed. We saw the flashes clearly <...> The road is uneven and broken. As I approach the village, I notice a deep hole from the entrance. Last time we walked here in total darkness and miraculously did not break our legs. <...> Beca, a small shaggy dog belonging to one of the LPR gunners, is spinning underfoot. The owner has gone on a mission, and Beca is worried, realizing that the owner is not among us, she dives back under the blanket, blocking the passage to the room of the LNR sheep. Beca is smart and understands what shelling is, she knows how to crawl like a plast, hide in a trench and, most importantly, be silent when necessary" ^{[14, p. 180]} – two worlds that are not alike: prosperous Paris and the Soledar neighborhood, two alien spaces united by the presence of a person and the meaning that a person uses to protect them endowed.

D. Filippov uses a different artistic device in "Collectors of Silence" to depict the duel of war and peace in Donetsk: "The fighters entered a destroyed three-story building in a chain, wandered into the first apartment they found. Unlike the factory building, it still smelled cozy. Not even with comfort, no, but with love that hasn't worn off yet.… The boys entered the first room. It turned out to be a bedroom. It was small, but cozy once. A large double bed, already without a mattress, a wardrobe in the corner, a cot against the wall. There is a cheap reproduction on the wall itself – a beautiful sailboat cutting through the sea surface. A self-tapping screw is screwed into the wall above the crib, and an aluminum cross hangs on a thin black cord. <...> A feeling of unspoken awkwardness hung in the air. It's like you're spying on someone else's life without any right to do so. <...> The kitchen has furniture and a refrigerator. At first it seemed strange, but when the Leader and the Engineer got closer, everything fell into place.: A splinter hole bloomed like a ragged flower through the door and side wall of the refrigerator. There were POM-2 mines in a row in the kitchen set. Taken out of the cassette, but not cocked" ^{[25, p. 208]}. War and peace met face to face, bumping foreheads, because it turned out that it was impossible for them to miss each other in the space of a "small" apartment that contained the happiness of a family paradise ‒ with photographs, a crib, the memory of love that reigned here, and the hell of war ‒ with a mined kitchen. The Russian soldier stood between the "duelists" – a complex artistic image illustrating one of the basic laws of dialectics – the law of unity and struggle of opposites, "expressing the source of self-movement and development of natural phenomena and socio-historical reality, acting as the basic law of cognition.<...> The law makes it possible to understand any integrity as a complex and fragmented system containing elements or tendencies that are directly incompatible with each other. The law of unity and struggle of opposites removes the claim to finality from any limited form of existence in nature and society, focuses on revealing the transitory nature of such forms, their transition to higher and more developed forms as they exhaust their capabilities" ^{[26, pp. 183-184]}.

Russian Russian soldiers in Russian literature do not symbolize war, first of all, his image is one of the components of the image of peace. Depicted with a weapon in his hands, he uses it to defend the Fatherland, to preserve peace. Being an intermediary between peace and war, he is forced to use the techniques of war to achieve peace. This tradition was formed in ancient Russian literature and was developed by Russian literature of the XVIII‒XXI centuries. The most striking example in this regard is the image of Peresvet, a monk–warrior, the hero of the "Tale of the Mamayev Massacre": armed with a spear, removing his armor, remaining only in a monastic cape, he faced his opponent on the battlefield in such a way that Kochubey's spear pierced him through, bringing them as close to each other as possible. Peresvet uses the last moments of his life to deliver a fatal blow to the enemy. Kochubey instantly falls off his horse, but Peresvet stays in the saddle and returns to his comrades to die among them.

Peresvet combines the archetypal features of the Russian warrior: love for the Fatherland, service to the military brotherhood, nobility, high spirituality, sacrifice, bravery, faith in God. It is no coincidence that the image of Peresvet is so relevant in literature today (Z. Prilepin "Peresvet is coming to us", A. Lapin "Spear Peresvet" and others). Russian Russian writers create an artistic image of events, directly or indirectly, based on the image of Peresvet and others like him, because the historical reality, the feats performed daily by Russian soldiers, inspire artists to this kind of analogy, awaken their historical memory.

Space and its content in the literature about war are constantly forced to coordinate their coexistence and put up with the fact that often the small accommodates the large, and the content of the large becomes the small. But there is never an empty space in the literature about war, because everything always has a content – both a house destroyed by a bomb and a house abandoned by people.

Having appeared in the city, the war comes to those places where civilians are found, and then its very conduct, the interaction of the warring parties, and its character change significantly, because the city is initially "represented in the mode of peaceful everyday life" ^{[2, p. 40]}. During the development of the military conflict, the city's space is gradually beginning to adapt to changes. The city as a living organism does not cease to function, but the transformations that it is forced to accept in order to maintain its habitual pace of life become noticeable. Thus, "the breakdown of the everyday urban chronope is carried out" ^{[2, p. 42]}, which affects all levels of everyday life and being of the city.

War in its "familiar environment" has a clear structure: The rear is the front, your own is someone else's. In urban space, it loses its relevance, since it is not always clear in which part of the city the border between the warring parties lies or whether there is one at all. In peacetime, the city serves as a shield from external threats, there is a connection with "the ancient archetype of the protective circle, which was outlined to protect against the forces of evil" ^{[2, p. 43]}. During the civil war, the boundary between the unknown, threatening death, and the native fortress-home is torn, or rather, blurred, ceases to be. The enemy and the front, friend and home are on the same territory, but that's why it's almost impossible to distinguish them ("A man in camouflage and with an AKS-74 ran out of the mansion to meet them: it seems he was ready to shoot – the thin man also raised his weapon, but the Creak shouted: ‒ Stop! Your own! <...> "... if the militia headquarters is located here, we're in trouble no worse than those assholes who lost their APC..." ‒ Creak managed to think. But something–perhaps his ancient steppe intuition and the ability to smell blood that came from nowhere‒suggested otherwise. There was no mistake about it. There was a tragedy here. <…> ‒ Who are you? Creak asked dully. "We are officers of the main intelligence directorate who carry out special investigative measures,‒ said camouflage. With his mouth stretched out almost vertically from the strain, he pronounced words that were alien to him, which he had not learned. Until recently, this man had never introduced himself to anyone like that. Creak slowly took aim and shot him in the leg" ^{[20, pp.171-175]}). A paradox arises: the closer you get, the more difficult it is at first glance to understand who is in front of you – a comrade or a marauder and a murderer.

The war seemed to poison the city, filling it with its deadly poison: "Even the untouched streets looked deserted and gray. Suddenly, a building destroyed by bombing appeared. A minute later, a five–story building with several windows taken out by a direct hit" ^{[20, p.141]}.

In Zakhar Prilepin's "Militia Romance", the image of a military city is presented in development: from the beginning of the first shots to large-scale military operations, during which everything (houses, playgrounds, shops, etc.) is destroyed, which is associated with the concept of peaceful life. The story "Life" artistically comprehends how the war is rapidly entering the space of the city, decisively transforming its appearance, replacing the usual way of life with a new frightening reality: "It was getting worse every day; one day he heard the expression "front line" and guessed that this very line runs here ‒ where he lived his life. Bombing became commonplace within a week; his school burned down"; "once he came under mortar fire in the middle of the town, he somehow parked his car, rushed to the nearest house, and lay down under the low balcony of a low–rise building" ^{[20, p. 21]}; "People in the office were quiet, tired of the news; you could hear how paper rustles. As soon as it started, although the shelling was less frequent than in the summer, they fled to the basement" ^{[20, p. 25]}. The war that came to the city instantly made it small, and everything in it also shrank to a "town", "low-rise building", "balcony". The people who lived in the city also changed their scale: some grew up, while others decreased. War always changes the size of the world and man.

Zakhar Prilepin's war is an invariably important character in the work: it comes uninvited and begins to manage as a hostess ("Pathologies", "Some will not go to hell", "Militia Romance"). The city and the townspeople are initially forced to submit to her illegal invasion. For beginners, war is an uncontrollable phenomenon that leads to a state of horror and makes them constantly worry, so their first desire is to hide from it and humbly wait for it to pass. Only after realizing that the war will not go away of its own free will, that it is necessary to stand tall and fight back against it, the city and the townspeople get rid of their fear of it, a habit is formed for it, its passionate perception is replaced by a cold-blooded comprehension of it. In The Militia Romance, Zakhar Prilepin shows what a long and difficult path leads to such a transformation.

War, like a tornado or tsunami, occurs when it pleases, subjugates the urban environment ("We didn't have to wait long: the door was blown out in less than a minute – as if someone invisible and huge had burst into the store, demolishing a whole shelf of colorful bottles with a flap of his wing" ^{[20, p. 159]}) and it encroaches on the very foundations of life ("The thin man sneezed, blew with effort, scattering the dust, and, bending down, quickly, as if hot, took a loaf of rye bread from the shelf. There was a frightening triangle of thick door glass sticking out of the top of it, piercing the loaf through" ^{[20, p. 160]}). The image of a wounded man pierced through by a piece of bread makes a strong impression, because it symbolizes an attempt on God. Bread is a gift from God, bread is associated with God, God gives bread to man and shares it with his disciples. The pierced bread is here, like a God pierced by war.

In addition to the reference to the biblical image of bread, the story "Alone" contains a reference to the biblical understanding of food. The heroes of the story – Creak, Forester, Thin and Abrek, fleeing from shelling in the city, found shelter in a store that turned out to be open. Having unexpectedly received free access to food, the soldiers were delighted, but they behaved with restraint and dignity: they took only what they really needed, and kept the store in order. They perceived the open store as a smile of Providence, which excluded violence on their part, they did not steal, they accepted the gift.

In Prilepin's world, surrounded by war, one can find references to other biblical symbols, which at first seem strange in this context. In the story "The Cold," a boa constrictor suddenly appears in "striking colors." His entire multi-meter appearance promises death to anyone who wants to approach. However, none of the militia, despite their fear and surprise, does not shoot at him. Paradoxically, the boa constrictor associated with death becomes for them a sign of life in a ruined city. His death is all the more dramatically perceived by them later, when, fleeing from the cold, he curled up in several rings around a tree and died. The serpent, having found itself outside its usual environment, lost its function and its significance: paradise was empty, it had no one to tempt, it left the tree that saved itself, so the only outcome awaited it – death.

It should be noted that the problem of the natural world and war in Zakhar Prilepin's "Militia Romance" requires a separate discussion. In addition to the exotic boa constrictor, there is a parrot in the book, which once appeared as a confirmation of the non-triviality and conviviality of existence: "‒ But think about it," suggested Dandelion, ‒does something like that live in every house here?"

‒Come on,‒ Pistol replied, frowning. "Not in the jungle.

Pistol looked thoughtful.

There was a rustle of wings above them, and both looked up to see a huge red-tailed parrot flying headlong into nowhere.

Dandelion and Pistol looked at each other and laughed" ^{[20, p.101]}. In the middle of the war, in the midst of the destroyed cities and villages of the Donbass land, creatures suddenly appear who do not belong here, who are categorically inadequate to what is happening, because they are signs of a peaceful, well-fed, rich time that has sunk into Oblivion. Through such encounters, Zakhar Prilepin shows the plastic nature of the world, its readiness for both death and resurrection.

The synthesis of war and peace gradually adapts the townspeople to aggressive living conditions. Shelling is becoming a familiar part of everyday life, and safety rules are routinely enforced or ignored.: "Several single shots were fired a hundred meters away, but there was no follow-up: no screams, no footsteps. <...> The local people began to get used to shooting" ^{[20, p. 51]}. This habituation to military conditions can be considered one of the defense mechanisms of the affected city, which cannot fall, since the entire urban structure serves to maintain its life. There is a process of slow struggle, where not only the military, but also civilians are fighting, the way to counter them is to fill their new living space with everyday worries.: "There was a kettle in the basement, sweets in an open box, someone always left a book with a bookmark - they settled in" ^{[20, p. 25]}; "There were battles on the outskirts of the city ‒ and movies were played in cinemas in the center and people were sitting on the verandas of cafes" ^{[20, p. 310]}; "The city was It's been under siege for three years now. The coffee shop did not close even in the most difficult weeks: when entire houses collapsed under bombing, and the tram ring was covered, where two carriages full of passengers burned down" ^{[20, p. 310]}; "Sometimes they just rode along the evening or even night streets, listening to music," my daughter, obeying her own mood, I ordered songs, and I didn't pay attention at all if they started shooting again" ^{[20, p. 314]}. During the war, the city is trying its best to live as before, but now the maintenance of this life, previously routine, philistine, boring, is filled with life-affirming meaning. The nameless hero of the story "Life", having come under fire in his own car and therefore being in a borderline emotional state, makes an independent decision for the first time ‒ he proposes to an old friend.:

"Will you get married? ‒ I asked at once; the voice still did not come back, as if it had hidden somewhere inside.

‒ Where to get out? ‒ She was scared. "I'm not dressed at all, for God's sake." Why are you bleeding?

‒ Will you get married? ‒ he repeated it again, a little more firmly" ^{[20, p. 31]}. In his peaceful life, he never decided anything, always went along with other people, had no desires and goals of his own. But when the war began, it turned out that there was no one more reliable, or rather, kinder and stronger than this man. This new power of his became absolutely tangible and obvious to his older brother, ex-wife and child, he suddenly became noticeable to them. The war forced everyone to rethink his image, vividly manifested it in his coordinate system.

He observes how the city is changing: "Then the first mortar shell fell into the center of the town; and immediately the second, third, fourth, fifth" ^{[20, p.20]}; "it was getting worse every day; one day he heard the expression "front line" and guessed that this very line passes This is where he lived his life. Bombing became commonplace within a week; his school burned down – he had once dreamed of it, but now he was not happy at all; the air raids were the worst of all" ^{[20, p.21]}. The city is rapidly taking on a new look, transforming: buildings associated with its former life are disappearing – a school, a hospital, a store, a stadium, etc. But the content remains unchanged, since the place where the now-destroyed school stood continues to be a carrier of information about it and what happened there for the townspeople.

In a city during a civil war, as we have already noted, the confrontation between the parties can proceed covertly, even unnoticed by its inhabitants. Civilian clothes and a passenger car make everyone peaceful, among whom it is difficult to identify the enemy: "One day Lesentsov seriously thought that many officers on the front line had an even higher chance of staying alive than in the city" ^{[20, p. 311]}. Since the boundaries between the warring parties are not obvious, the enemy may be within walking distance.: "Lesentsov felt his heart start beating. It was ridiculous: in the house opposite, a man who had not yet threatened them came out into the kitchen, and he was already worried" ^{[20, p. 37]}. The situation when a person is on the border of life and death aggravates all the organs of perception. They continue to warn people about danger even when there is none. In this regard, the story "Contact" is indicative, in which the main character Lesentsov goes from Donetsk to Moscow on vacation. Having taken a step out of the war into the world, he falls into the trap of forgotten smells, norms of behavior, interests, preferences, buildings; he sees people whose features his memory has long erased, because such people are not needed in the war: "Wedged into a crowd crawling between swirling glass doors – the first thought: what if there is shelling? – traffic will immediately come to a standstill, a stupid death in the company of strangers, behind glass. <...> I returned to the crowd and found myself hearing an insane number of smells, most of which I had forgotten – perfumes, leather, plastic – but I didn't smell iron, grass, burning, dust, sweat, or gunpowder at all. The resulting smell of food was also perfumery: heavy, oversaturated, suffocating" ^{[20, pp. 218-219]}. Not only Lesentsov perceives peaceful Moscow as a stranger, Moscow is also not ready to recognize him: "... he felt – he was not imagining, he was sure ‒ that those sitting next to him sometimes squint at him with some disgust: as if they had entered a decent institution, and here a natural homeless man; it smells. But he didn't smell. He called the waitress to pay, and she also came up, as if trying not to breathe: "Card, cash?" she asked through her nose, and almost fainted from suffocation while he was taking crumpled bills out of a lump" ^{[20, p. 219]}. Lesentsov combines the peaceful breath of Moscow and the military wheezes of Donetsk. The smells of war and peace, fused together in him, create a powerful life-giving force, which he spends on conceiving a child. This child here symbolizes the greatness and infinity of life, asserts the unconditional victory of the ideas that Lesentsov serves, and launches humanity into a new, higher-quality round of existence. Lesentsov returns to Donetsk with his wife, daughter and child, who has not yet been born, but has already changed the atmosphere of the city for him. For Lesentsov, Donetsk is now not only a city where people are dying, but also a city dedicated to fulfilling an important mission – the mission of creating a qualitatively new world. Lesentsov's daughter also becomes an important attribute of military Donetsk, which quickly learns it, falls in love with it, fills it with special content, in turn, the city also lets the girl into itself, accepts her. Donetsk, thus, acts as a kind of inversion of the capital – arrogant, well‒fed, rich, fastidious, closing her eyes and ears so as not to see or hear the moaning of a provincial brother in pain: "... what kind of creature is not found in Moscow," but realized that they were celebrating him anyway, the beauties, averting their eyes with slight disgust, then mothers with children, then, finally, numerous guards on any floor, who were too deliberately peering at him" ^{[20, pp. 218-219]}.

The Militia Romance is assembled from short stories in such a way that it is a narrative about the events in Donbass with a complexly organized character system. In the Militia Romance, in Tolstoy's style, all the "arches are brought together": the story "Life" that opens the book rhymes with the story "Home" that ends it and Lesentsov's last remark: "I love my homeland."

The action of the stories takes place in Donetsk or its surroundings and in Moscow. The image of a military city is created gradually and by the end of the book acquires integrity, acquires a character, a developing story, and is filled with characters adequate to it: "the city turns out to be the cause and creator of its history, mythology, literature, and at the same time their consequence and creation. At the same time, in each link of the semiotic mechanism, not dead unambiguous connections are manifested, but dynamic relationships implying the possibility of choice and a certain degree of its unpredictability (this is due to the fact that all processes of semiotic construction are carried out by people acting both as carriers of individual creative consciousness and as participants in more general and independent semiotic processes" ^{[16, p. 3]}. The military city in the "Militia Romance" exists as a conceptualized and comprehending space, possessing exceptional uniqueness due to the fact that it is endowed with a historical destiny, which it does not renounce.

The article is published in the version approved by the reviewers (after receiving a positive review recommending the manuscript for publication) with corrections made by the author (after receiving the editor’s comments, if any).
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