Mariya Mikhailovna Repenkova

The article investigates a debut novel by Meir Shalev, a famous Israeli prosaist. Proceeding from the discurs-analysis it is proved that the national history concept in Shalev’s “Russian novel” (1988) is based at the post-modernist understanding of the world in which discourses deconstruction of ideological (Zionism) and religion (Judaism) had the determining meaning. The methods of the discursive codes and practices (“double coding principle” and others) play-mode re-coding give rise to the parody-laughing effect in the novel.

The article discusses the poetological features of the story “Infinite Present Time” (1998) by A. Kulin, which are studied on narrative-compositional and image-bearing levels. The unusual chronotopos (playing with time and space), along with the psychological motivation of the characters and the acute social problems, permit us to say a lot about the fictional code that is dominant in this work of the writer. The present tense (=yor) is intended to increase the sense of tragedy and make the events described more dramatic. The present tense in this story seems to absorb the past and replace it, presenting past events in a tragic perspective through the prism of today. The present tense (=yor) is also used to describe events that the main character believes will happen to her in the future. They also evoke a persistent sense of hopelessness and anxiety. In such a way, the present tense accumulates all other tenses, apparently becoming infinite: there is nothing but the present, a message which the story’s title emphasizes.