The Antinomy ‘Earth – Heaven’ and an Elegiac Topos in the Book of Poems ‘Under the Northern Sky’ by Konstantin Balmont

The article examines the influence of the elegiac tradition in K. D. Balmont’s book of poems Under the Northern Sky (1894) and its connection with the ‘earth – heaven’ antinomy. The subject-imagery structure of the book of poems is analyzed within the framework of ‘non-classical’ poetics described by S. N. Broitman. Of particular importance is the integrity of the world, expressed by Balmont in the phenomenon of ‘broken unity’, which influences the contradictory relationships between the space of heaven and that of earth. The article analyzes both spaces. The heavenly world is understood as an idyll lost in elegies. The positive meaning of the sky is realized in a number of images (the moon, the sun, lightning, stars, dawn). A certain type of the beloved is attributed to this space – heavenly/idyllic. The earthly world, on the contrary, has negative characteristics. Here the subject is focused on the problem of the irreversibility of the past. In this space there is the other type of the beloved – earthly/demonic. The two feminine principles are in opposition to each other, in the same way as there is an opposition between the two spaces. Despite remaining within the elegiac tradition in many texts, Balmont transforms the genre. First and foremost, this refers to the chronotope. The cyclical time of nature is replaced with the eternity of a heavenly idyll. The vertical movement of the subject toward it can be described using the concept of ‘kairotope’. In traditional elegy, the subject is unable to overcome the limitations associated with the impossibility of rebirth, but Balmont changes it. Death is understood as liberation from the prison of the body and a return to heaven. The subject gets the opportunity to return to Edem, from which he was expulsed. Balmont’s subsequent collections of poems will include references to this biblical story as well as a similar representation of the ‘earth – heaven’ antinomy. Thus, the conclusions drawn in this article are relevant to the analysis of Balmont's other books.