Synthesis of Literary Styles in Evgeny Vodoloazkin's 'Lavr'

• In Event: Metaphor, Representation, and Hidden Stories in the Russian Literary Tradition

Abstract

I propose an in-depth analysis of Evgeny Vodolazkin’s linguistic and stylistic choices in “Lavr” through the lens of temporal and literary synthesis. By focusing on the interplay between archaic and contemporary language within the novel, my study aims to dissect how the author’s linguistic choices form our perception of literary significance. The novel’s relevance outside of its immediate narrative and thematic structures beckons us to consider where it fits into the Russian literary tradition.
Evgeny Vodolazkin in his novel “Lavr”, published in 2012, takes the route of intermixing different styles of writing that span across various literary genres from “Слово о Полку Игореве” to Pelevin’s “Generation П”. Vodolazkin’s characters Arseniy and Christopher, journey over a multitude of linguistic epochs; they converse in both archaic Old Church Slavonic and contemporary Russian slang that one would hear on the streets today. Within the narrative, fifteenth-century monastic elders articulate phrases like "Яко боже дати волю," simultaneously interlacing them with modern idioms such as "не морочь мне голову". In describing the life of Arseniy, Vodolazkin merges the confessional genre of spiritual memoir with elements of the picaresque and the bildungsroman, encouraging us to focus on the commonalities rather than the differences between the literature of heterogenous cultures and epochs. The synthesis of these different literary styles and ways of speech that cover centuries of “Русь” and Russian history, positions Vodolazkin’s novel in a peculiar environment of timelessness that deserves to be explored in greater depth.

Author

• Nikolay Smirnov, Brown U