Between a Novel and a Song: Genre Peculiarities of Z. Prilepin’s “Volunteer’s Song” (“Opolchensky Romans”)

The article analyses the polysemy of the author’s nomination of the genre (volunteer’s song, “14 tracks in different rhythms”), which reveals the mechanisms of the narrative strategy in Zakhar Prilepin’s “Volunteer’s Song” (“Opolchensky Romans”), as well as the forms of implementation of this strategy in the text. A comparison with M. Stepanova’s “In Memory of Memory: A Romance” shows that similar literary techniques, included in different cultural and aesthetic paradigms, are be used to create fundumentally different models of the world. The traditions in Prilepin’s creation are inquired in comparison with works of M. Gorky, particularly the cycle of essays and stories “Across Rus’ ” The conclusion done of the closeness two author’s ideological attitudes, determed in both cases the main features of the narrative structure.