Discourse of Holy War in “The Miner’s Daughter” by Anna Revyakina: Tradition, Poetic Intonation, Increment of Meaning

The paper analyzes the content of the Holy War theme in the poem “The Miner’s Daughter” by Anna Revyakina in the context of development of the correspondent discourse in Russian culture. It is argued that appearance of the first version of the song “Holy War” in 1916 and its second version in 1941 is a consequence of deep reflection on the ontological essence of war in Russian religious philosophy. At the same time, the origins of Russian poetic discourse of Holy War are rooted in war poetry, including literary and folk verse about the Patriotic War of 1812. It is argued that in modern war poetry the discourse of Holy War stands in the center of aesthetic conceptualization of the Donbass war experience. In ‘Donbass poetry’ new elements are formed within the discourse of Holy War: value-charged images of Russian military history and the motif of fraternal closeness of a human participating in a ‘justified’ battle to the heavenly forces that help him in this struggle. It is determined that Anna Revyakina in the poem “The Miner’s Daughter” renews the emotional and stylistic intonation which traditionally forms the poetic discourse of Holy War, and brings new elements to its content. The innovative elements of the discourse in the poem include the following: intimately personal intonation, the pathos of struggling for the masculine and feminine in their living interaction, the idea of saving love.