THE POETICS OF URBAN AND RURAL SPACE IN SHORT STORIES OF V. SHUKSHIN

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the poetics of urban and rural space in short stories of Vasily Shukshin. In the center of the study there is a problem of existential and social conflict generated by the clash of two worlds: the traditional rural way of life and the urban environment. In the context of rapid urbanization during the Soviet period, this dichotomy goes beyond a simple geographical opposition, becoming a philosophical and anthropological problem of a person’s search for their place in the world. The methodological framework of the work combines literary and sociological approaches. It employs Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope, Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the production of space, and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social fields. Such an interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to view rural and urban space as artistic, social, and symbolic constructions. The material of the study consists of Shukshin’s short stories, with particular attention given to the “odd fellows” – characters whose inner drama most vividly expresses the incompatibility of the two modes of existence. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the village in Shukshin’s prose appears as a locus of rootedness, moral truth, and connection with the land. Urban space, on the other hand, is associated with alienation, formality, and the loss of authenticity. On the chronotopic level, rural time is cyclical and organic, whereas urban time is linear and mechanistic. On the sociological level, a conflict is revealed between the rural habitus and the urban field: familiar rural values – honesty, simplicity, diligence – become devalued in the city. On the archetypal level, oppositions such as Home/Anti-home, Earth/Asphalt, and Threshold emerge, reflecting the spiritual drama of the characters. The study’s conclusions emphasize that the poetics of space in Shukshin’s works is a system-forming principle of his artistic world. The spatial conflict is interiorized in the consciousness of the characters, becoming a source of their existential quest. The writer’s prose records the universal problem of losing “one’s own place” and shows that the search for the meaning of life is inseparable from the search for a space of authentic existence.