THE MOTIF OF “STONE WOMEN” AS A WORLD-MODELLING UNIVERSAL IN THE NOVEL PROSE OF B.A. PILNYAK

Abstract

The article examines the author’s world-modeling techniques in B.A. Pilnyak’s novels. The authors focus on the motif-figurative paradigm in structuring the author’s worldview. The motif of “stone women,” a recurring theme in the writer’s work, not only objectifies the author’s worldview paradigm but is also embedded in his natural philosophy, ontology, and historiosophy. It is explored as a world-modeling universal in the novels “Machines and Wolves” and “The Volga Flows into the Caspian Sea,” which determines the objective of the study. Based on an analysis of specific text fragments, the authors identify the world-modeling potential of this motif, taking into account its duality (external/ internal), and examine its connection with other recurring motifs, its place in the poetics of the works, the semantic projections of its disclosure, and the methods of lexical objectification. The conclusion of the article substantiates the role of the “stone women” motif in the author’s worldview, its connection to the novels’ space-time continuum, character structure, and symbolic significance. The analysis of the writer’s motivic structure revealed a range of recurring motifs that are significant to him.