Dimensions of poetics and genealogy of alternative history as a phenomenon of the literary process

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Dimensions of poetics and genealogy of alternative history as a phenomenon of the literary process

Antonina Anistratenko, Antoniy Moysey,

Bukovinian State Medical University, Chemivtsi (Ukraine)

Аністратенко Антоніна, Мойсей Антоній. Виміри поетики та генеалогії альтернативної історії (АІ) як явища літературного процесу. У статті розглядаються основні характеристики субжанрів альтернативної історії, їх стиль, метажанрові маркери та загальні характерні риси сюжету. Тут представлений метажанр альтернативної історії (АІ) як основна гендерна формація, яка виводить власні піджанри з подібними та різними маркерами, що означує новизну студії. Мета статті - визначити, як спеціальні жанрові комплекси та стилістичні маркери, що утворюють метажанр АІ, ідентифікуються як субжанри метажанру альтернативної історії в українському та американському літературних вимірах. Методи дослідження. Для представлення класифікацій субжанрів АІ використовуються описові та порівняльно-зіставні методи; для їх аналізу та розподілу, для вдосконалення класифікації генологічних та стилістичних елементів субжанрів АІ також застосовано порівняльний метод та аналітичний принцип. Висновки. Можна зробити висновок, що метажанрова формація АІ з часом була розділена на окремі субжанри та різновиди і прийняла різні схеми оповіді від інших жанрів, особливо канонічних, таких як історичний роман, фантастичний роман, детективний роман, ухронія та фентезі. Альтернативна історія стала надзвичайно плідним джерелом для відновлення впливу міфологем в Європі, зокрема східній. Альтернативна історія та субжанри АІ намагаються подолати сакралізацію історіографії та зробити кожен європейський компонент історичної картини світу альтернативним. В американській літературі альтернативна історія відіграє роль відбудови національної історії та створення проекцій майбутнього.

Ключові слова: метажанр альтернативної історії, жанрові маркери, субжанрова класифікація, українська література, американська література.

Антонина Анистратенко, Антоний Мойсей. Измерения поэтики и генеалогии альтернативной истории (АИ) как явления литературного процесса. Цель статьи - определить, как специальные жанровые комплексы и стилистические маркеры, образуют метажанр АИ, идентифицируются как субжанр метажанр альтернативной истории в украинском и американском литературных измерениях. Методы исследования. Для представления классификаций субжанров A и используются описательные и сравнительно-компаративистские методы; также применены сравнительный метод и аналитический принцип. Выводы. Можно сделать вывод, что метажанровая формация АИ со временем была разделена на отдельные субжанры и разновидности и приняла различные схемы повествования других жанров. Альтернативная история стала чрезвычайно плодотворным источником для восстановления влияния мифологем в Европе. Альтернативная история и субжанры АИ пытаются преодолеть сакрализацию историографии и сделать каждый европейский компонент исторической картины мира альтернативным. В американской литературе альтернативная история играет роль восстановления национальной истории и создания проекций будущего.

Ключевые слова: метажанр альтернативной истории, жанровые маркеры, субжанрова классификация, украинская литература, американская литература.

Introduction

The concept of alternative history (AH) as a phenomenon of the literary process in Ukrainian literature is outlined in the field of neo and postmodernism, therefore it is connected with the 70s-90s of the XX century and the first decade of the XXI century. Like samples of AH works, like works have been known as phenomena since the beginning of the XX century. Published both in mainland Ukraine and during emigration (for example, V. Vinnichenko “The Solar Machine”, 1920, M. Tchaikovsky “For the Power of the Sun”, 1918). In historical science and fiction, the desire of a person to change something in history to return it to the right direction is realized with increasing frequency. First of all, the writers have figured out that by understanding the logic of events, especially at a certain chronotopic distance, one can successfully create projects of new variants, layering them on already known schemes of historical events of past epochs. With the help of this method, it is possible to reconstruct a national history particularly well. Therefore, the first attempt took place in 1889 in American literature.

The historical gaps and moments, that have most interested foreign writers, mainly belong to the history of wars and breakthroughs of the century, as well as to the history of Christianity. On the other hand, the works of AH in Ukrainian fictions, as a matter of practice, relate primarily to the national history (often political) and relate either to the times of Kievan Rus and the Christianization of Ukrainian lands (I. Bilyk "The Sword of Ares", "The Funeral of the gods", "Do not Irritate the Griffins", V. Vladko "The Descendants of the Scythians"), or to the XIX - early XX century. O. Irvanets Rivne-Rovno", Ya. Yanovskyi "The Valley of Belvedere", Yu. Shcherbak The Time of Deaths", M. and S. Dyachenko "Vita Nostra" and, of course, the defilyada - series of three novels of V. Kozhelyanko.

The ambivalence of this metagenre (being on the edge between fiction and historical prose) is that it differs from science fiction by a plot and is formed on the matrix genre of the historical novel in the same way as based on a fantastic view.

The special study "The Concept and Current State of Alternative History" presents a more detailed diagram of the transformation of AH from genre to metagenre. The role of the European myth in spreading the alternative historical method in the Humanities" Smyrniv V. Ukrainian science fiction: historical and thematic overview; translated into English, Kharkiv: Machulin, 2019, P. 67 [in English]. Moysey Antoniy, et al. “The concept and modern condition of alternative history. The role of European myth in spreading the alternative- historian method in humanities”. Literary Imagination, vol. 19, N. 3 (2), 2017, P. 788..

The genre plan of the historical novel successfully functions for works of alternative history. An alternative that displaced history appeared in the field of historicism. The emergence of the historical novel is connected with the revival of historical prose in the middle ages, the modification of the novelistic structure of the narrative and the transformation of historical literature in the classical prose tradition from a mythological parable to an epic genre, recently - in the canonized genre of the novel either. Historical prose is an original genre of facts, scientism, and style combined and based on the principles of poetics. This point of view was put forward by O. Abramovich and connected it with the historical basis of the genesis of the novel. Due to the establishment of a totalitarian regime in Europe and such a common thing as rewriting history in the XX century, historical events not only of antiquity but also socio-political changes witnessed by a single generation are reformatted in numerous sources. In novelistic prose, mythologems and numerous layers of stylization appear as mechanisms of an alternation. The movement towards generalization has given history the intermediary role between philosophy and religion: it has been transformed into a secular religion. Therefore, its relationship with the church has become ambiguous. History has been replaced by Divine Providence as it was able to explain the course of things, but at the same time history continued to be associated with God (unmittelbar zu Gott), there has always been something sublime for rational historical reconstruction. Wilhelm von Humbolt compared history to art, which includes not only an imitating of an image but in immersing oneself in an idea based on the form of an image.

Volodymyr Smyrniv in the monograph "Ukrainian fiction: historical and thematic review" provides a chronological bibliographic description of the historical development of our fantastic literature. It is interesting that the history of Ukrainian fiction he led since 1903 and submitted works written before 1999. In the list of fiction works, there are alternative history novels that, unfortunately, are not marked by the author as AH, but are included in the list of science fiction and fantasy (it should be noted that these genre formations are also not separated by V. Smyrniv). The countdown of competitive science fiction in Ukrainian literature has been conducted since 1921 - the time of writing "The Solar Machine" by V. Vinnichenko. The genre characteristic of the " Solar machine» draws special attention in the monograph: "Readers enjoyed the fruitful plot of the work, perceiving it as an adventure story, a detective novel, an intriguing love story with several love affairs and erotic scenes, a psychological and philosophical novel, social and political satire - and, of course, as a science fiction novel. All these genre varieties are connected by a science fiction topic-the invention of the extraordinary machine... " Smyrniv V. Ukrainian science fiction: historical and thematic overview / Vlolodymyr Smyrniv; translated into English, Kharkiv: Ma- chulin, 2019, P. 72 [in English].. Highlighting genealogical layers of the novel from a somewhat confusing list of characteristics of the work by V. Vinnichenko, we can see fantastic, adventurous, detective, philosophical, satirical components. However, one of the most important layers of the genre matrix of the novel - historical, or rather - alternative historical-remains without attention. Yet, after analyzing the plot of the novel, the specified component pops up: "V. Vinnichenko presents the invention of the solar machine at the end of the first part of the novel, and devotes the previous pages to a detailed description of the political, social and economic situation of Germany." So, we can observe how V. Smyrniv proves the AH formula for building up a novel: the real story plus the fantastic element (bifurcation point) equals the alternative storyline.

So, from the work belonging to the subgenre "N genre + element AH" the path of AH in Ukrainian literature begins, which dates back to the 1920s. Meanwhile, in American literature, dating is quite clear and associated with postpostmodernism. M. Schneider-Mayerson in his article "What almost happened..." clearly indicates the year of the emergence of the AH genre: "1995 can be considered the year of the birth of alternative history as a genre" (Schneider-Maerson, P.63) Schneider-Mayerson M. What Almost Was: The Politics of the Contemporary Alternate History Novel, American Studies, 50:3/4, (Fall/ Winter 2009), P. 63-83 [in English].. Then M. Schneider-Mayerson explains such a clear boundary of the emergence of the genre by extra-literary reasons: "Despite the fact that hundreds of texts can be retroactively added to the list of alternative stories, the version of literary counterfacts that came into force in the early 1990s was not fully recognized as a genre until science fiction reviewers as Steven H. Silver, E. Lipper, and NASA scientist R. B. Schmunk established the literary award «Sidewise Awards for Alternate History» for achievements in writing works of alternative history in 1995".

Though E. Lipper and T. Shippey would not agree with M. Schneider-Mayerson to be honest. They wouldn't like to swap an alternative history into a literature shuttle which was launched with the help of writer's award from XX to XXI centuries. There is no doubt that a genre genesis belongs to the mid-twentieth century. Whatever features it might possess in American literature, the presence of a large set of works that have received the attention of publishers, readers, and literary critics is indicative of this. T. In the monograph "Hard reading: learning from science fiction" Shippey tries to combine the chronicle of American literature science fiction with literary analysis. This would help the reader to successfully interpret works of science fiction. Speaking about the time when the AH appears in American literature, Shippey says the following: [Still, what all this goes to show, I hope, is once again that sf is serious, even when it is being playful. These are all major issues, and it may be only the long prosperous afternoon of Western society post-1950 that has prevented them from becoming more contentious. The six essays after this one all in their different ways are connected to the same subject. The next two are on the issue of the cultural contest, the two after that deal with `alternate history', and the last two look at a particular type of `alternate history', the `world where magic works', considering also the relationship between magic, religion, and science] Shippey T. Hard reading: learning from science fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016, P. 69 [in English]., - T. Shippey makes an introduction to the classification of alternative history in American literature. So there we deal with the year of 1950.

The classification of American alternative history is based on the whirligig of the literary process. That is the main focus of the difference in subject-object orientation. The starting point here is a certain work of some author and it is its characteristics that automatically serve as a model and the next template of the genre matrix. It is worth considering what kind of author and work it is despite all the contrariety of the approach and its justification. And this is about "Citizen of the Galaxy" P. Heinlein. who is known to be a brilliant writer and his extremely well-structured work. He is famous for being not only "self-employed", but also effectively working for the literary time and genre. The role of "Citizen of the Galaxy" is multidimensional and not obvious: we face not just entertaining reading material or a humanistic mission to expand the boundaries of readers' thinking. R. Heinlein builds up a nonlinear spatial and temporal model of history for the reader, winning the reader's heart and darkening the mind at the same time, encouraging people to lose the sense of time-space, and later, in the next generations, the ability to see the forest for the trees, that is, by writing history to see the whole history itself:" Shippey, T. Hard reading: learning from science fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016, P. 69. Ibidem, P. 70. Within the plot of Citizen of the Galaxy itself, this play has a very obvious function: it is an attempt by the dictatorial 'Grandmother', who runs the ship, to involve Thorby in her society's mythology and make it impossible for him to get away.

One must understand that as an artistic device a repeated mythologization does not work in AH compositions of this type. It namely works as an idea and goal for implementation, which gets higher to the top more than an adventure story and will serve as a guide for the author and reader: [Heinlein is aware of all these falsities, and indeed uses the play to make them ironically clear. He is aware also of the tendency of most human societies to rewrite history in conformity with their current self-images] Ibidem, P. 71.. The images change over time, along with new political and social trends, so history is rewritten again. Such a critical alternative towards national or global history is considered in historical science as a lack of a historian, an attempt to intrude on the sacred truth, and the steady-as-a-rock facts. Nevertheless in fiction, the lack becomes a creative room for non-standard thinking and analysis implementation, which allows us to reveal the secrets of real history.

The next type of AH in American literature, described by T. Shippey, comes into view owing to the idea of doubt of progressive development of history. It was followed by the theory of a stair-stepping development of mankind history in general and national history in particular. The author of the classification makes the connection between these views up-to- date which is effective enough for creating AH samples. "The tension between the two views is seen in the rich history of works about time travelers who return to change the past. The most famous of them are, perhaps, "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague de Camp 1941 p.» Ibidem, P. 74.. Shippey also refers a very similar to de Camp's novel the work of M. Twain “Yankees from Connecticut at the court of King Arthur”. It was written 52 years earlier and it belongs to the second point of the classification of AH works. Besides the conclusion about a different functional role of the time travel method in the works of alternative history, we also update a new one, much more distant from the declared one by M. Schneider-Mayerson in 1995, namely, 1889, the year of writing the novel by Mark Twain «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court». However, the novel by M. Twain was criticized of monoculturalism in the political worldview. Although all of these details are all related to extraliterary factors. If we compare the invariant of American AH, presented for the first time in the novel by M. Twain, we are talking about cryptohistory in Ukrainian and Western European literature. It is indicated in the monograph of T. Shippey as a pseudohistory ('Whig history').

The next invariant of AH in American literature is interpreted by T. Shippey as an "alternate universe". It can be correlated with a European concept that is also characteristic of Ukrainian AH, like - metahistory. One can observe the invariant in the alternative American fiction, in the novel, written in 1951, by M. W. Wellman "Twice in Time" and in the first story of G. Kipling's "Eye of Allah", which was reissued in 1926 in his collection "Debits and Credits". Ibid., T. Shippey characterizes the AH invariant, as [the tension between 'desirability' and 'possibility' is what all the stories are really about] Ibidem, P. 83. Denisova T. N. Istoriya amerykans'koyi literatury KHKH stolittya [History of American literature of the XX century], NASU, T.G.Shevchenko Institute of literature, Kiev: Publishing house "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", 2012, P. 314 [in Ukrainian].. He also called it metaphorically the "alternate universe". The same phenomenon is called by T. Denisova as "The Traditional American Trend" in her brilliant "History of American literature of the XX century". She distinguishes it from the concepts and main reason of postmodernism, which was formed in the American culture of the next decade: "A new theme is being developed. It keeps in step with the interests of society and man. The search for a new poetics is not in the plane of postmodernism, but in traditional American trends like new journalism, history, quick news (gothic), a combination of sociality (factuality) and fictionality in the American dimension (fabulation)"11 (Denisova, p.314). There is no clear analog of the European and Ukrainian political novel of AH in the American classification of AH, but "fabulation" actually takes the same place as a political utopia with an alternative historical structure of the plot in our literature.

Another invariant of AH in the American literature of the mid-XX century is the alternative "parallel world". This variety includes a large text corpus, in particular, the one by K. Dick “The Man in the High Castle” (1962), H. Harrison “A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!” (1972), W. Moore “Bring the Jubilee” (not translated into Ukrainian) (1953), R. Garrett, “Too Many Magicians2 (1967). Shippey says "The point is, however, that all these stories also have their very potential to modern concepts of history, and are attractive to us at least partly because they show us how we might be too different if subjected to a different set of social pressures"] Shippey, T. Hard reading: learning from science fiction, op. cit., P. 84 [in English]. (Shippey, p.84). In comparison to the classification of Ukrainian and European AH literature, the American Parallel world'torrelates with historical fantasy (historized fiction). This AH invariant has the critical difference between the actual described history and alternative one after the bifurcation point. There are a lot of options for layering genres, plot construction, arts media, and galleries of imagery in literature.

The last type of American AH, which is described in the monograph "Hard reading..." is associated with the expression in belles-letters AH of the individual role in the history of civilization. So at the ideological and thematic level of the work, the tension is caused by the opposition of individualization and the randomness of historical events. T. Shippey calls the "Foundation" of A. Asimov an ideal example of this type of AH: "Still, it must be obvious to everyone that the trilogy (as it was when this piece was first written) could not have been written without some sense of historical analogy, while for much of the time the stories do nothing but dramatize the subordination of the individual will to the 'laws' of sociohistory"] Ibidem, P. 84.. In Ukrainian and European literature, alternative historiography resonates, that is, what in German sounds like" Alternative Historik", - artistic and essayistic works aimed at solving the problem of relations between the historian and his subject. For instance, G. White "Metahistory", Yu. Andrukhovich "Central-Eastern Revision", etc. It is noteworthy that in the European literary the alternative historiography serves the writer primarily as a base for socio-philosophical analysis although it is recorded as a subgenre of AH. In American literature it serves as an artistic method of retrospection: "Retrospection - is not history. This is a glimpse into the past. The past seems somewhat softened by the time distance, angles are little rounded..." Denisova T. N. Istoriya amerykans'koyi literatury KHKH stolittya..., op. cit., P. 323.. It should be noted that AH writers, use modeling as a method of distant analytical prediction and motivation of cause-and-effect relationships of real historical and cultural events as well as plot units of the work. Which one can't say about the retrospection that is often used by authors of historical novels.

The concept of a sub-genre is balanced on the border of content and form and is dialectically related to the term metagenre. Depending on the interpretation of the one mentioned above, the semantic load and semantic valence of the concept of subgenre differ significantly.

Therefore, in modern literary studies, the genre is associated with a formal phenomenon preferably. This is established in many theoretical and literary works, in particular, as follows: G. Bloom, J. Derrida, M. Bakhtin, В. Zatonsky, D. Nalivaiko, P. Nich, M. Bradbury, etc. Hence, "the form is always well-founded by something. In the ontological meaning, the form is not entitled to the status of a sustainable thing. Although, it is determined by the logical chain that unites the design and creation of real integrity, an objective- subjective symbolic monade. Its aim is our minds and our response" Chervinskaya O. V. Arhumenty formy: monohrafiya [Arguments of the Form: monograph], Chernivtsi: Chernivtsi National University, 2015, P. 7 [in Ukrainian]. according to O. Chervinska in the monograph "Arguments of the Form", a theorist of literature in Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. So, we see that genre and forms are the concepts from one series. Their content and logic have to comply with the terms of the content plan. In practical discourse, metagenre, genre and subgenre will balance on the border of content and form, taking their place as a "viewer" in the quantum theory of the microworld.

The metagenre in literary studies has a huge semantic set of meanings. Authors like O. Burlina, Yu. Podlubnova, B. Ivaniuk considers metagenre as some extra derivation so far. It is more closely to the method and way of artistic expression of the object of literature comprehension and reproduction. Not a consolidated sub-genre formation though. All the combined direction of the theoretical studios relating to the question of metagenre is based on the interpretation of M. Bahtin, by the way. He outlines metagenre as established set of specific means of artistic world modeling. Consequently, "the metagenre blurs the traditional understanding of the genre, ^tb goes into a different system of theoretical understanding", - he points out in the monograph "Scores of Text and Spirit" O. Raritskyi Raritskyi O. Partytury tekstu ta dukhu (Khudozhnya ta dokumental'na proza "Ukrayins'kykh shistdesyatnykiv") [Scores of text and spirit (Artistic and documentary prose of the Ukrainian Sixtiers)], Kyiv, 2016, P. 26 [in Ukrainian].. Partly agreeing with this interpretation, we should pay attention to the pragmatic aspect of differentiating the genre and metagenre. This issue is covered in the "Lexicon of General and Comparative Literature": "metagenre is a popular genre characteristic that determines the typological similarity of various genre forms" Lexicon of General and Comparative Literature, ed. by A. Volkov, Chernivtsi: Golden timpani, 2001, P. 322 [in Ukrainian].. The concept of metagenre is used in modem literary studies when it comes to large varieties of fiction. They are known to create their own genre modifications which later become independent genres.

O. Stuzhuk, the author of one of the first Ukrainian science fiction studios, outlines that it is fair to emphasize the development of genre modifications by the metagenre education. "Metagenre is a peculiar system of genres with several characteristic features" Stuzhuk O. Khudozhnya literatura yak metazhanr (na materiali ukrayins'koyi literatury XIX-XX stolit') [Fiction as a metagenre (based on the material of Ukrainian literature of the XIX-XX centuries)], Abstr. of thesis. ... Cand. of Phil: 10.01.06, O. I. Stuzhuk, Kyiv, 2006, P. 5 [in Ukrainian].. The term metagenre is used in the suggested study just in this very narrow meaning.

The definition of the genre by N. Bernadska can be served as a basis. (" A genre is an artistic concept as a whole. Where features like dominant (a set of features that cover different levels of the work - from compositional to linguistic) and variable (a system of flexible and changeful elements of the structure) interact. When an artistic genre is a set of dominant (i.e., level) and variable (i.e., changeful) features they are known to create a genre matrix, forming their connections in a certain clear sequence - structure. The genre changes into a subgenre if the total number and quality of the dominant features of the work decreases and the influence of the variable ones increases. The subgenre is a genealogical formation that arose through transformation or modification of the genre.

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