Lennart Magnusson
Grenadjärvägen 23 a
691 53 Karlskoga
Sweden
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e-mail: lt.magnusson@telia.com
 
 

The Description of Nature in
Konstantin Paustovsky´s Meshchorskaya storona

Isaak Levitan "Sumerki. Stoga." (Twilight. Haystacks), 1899.
 
 

Abstract

Magnusson, L., 2003: Naturskildringen i Konstantin Paustovskijs Mesjtjorskaja storona (Depictions of Nature in Konstantin Paustovsky's Meshchorskaya storona)

This study treats the description of nature in Konstantin Paustovsky´s povest´ (novella) Meshchorskaya storona, which was published in 1939. The methods used in this study are those of comparison and description. The work is placed in the Russian tradition of descriptions of nature (Sergei Aksakov, Ivan Turgenev, Michail Prishvin), and motifs in works by Bunin and Prishvin are compared with those of the novella. There is also a comparison between Konstantin Paustovsky and three Swedish writers (Erik Rosenberg, Sven Rosendahl and Harry Martinson), who write about nature in the 1930´s and onwards. Then the narrative technique in Meshchorskaya storona is examined and descriptions of nature are analysed - light and colour, sounds and movement, scents and sensations, forests and meadows, lakes and streams, the cultivated landscape, animals and plants. There is also a chapter concerning Paustovsky´s style of writing.

The results show that Konstantin Paustovsky is not only a writer in the old Russian prose tradition but also a writer who selects his words and expressions very carefully, avoids clusters of attributes and favours le mot juste. He sometimes uses dialectal words to add local colour. His sentences are often short and mostly paratactic in structure. Paustovsky´s works have sometimes beeen criticized for lack of coherence, but this study shows that Mescorskaya storona is a very consciously composed creation. The author paints nature´s beauty in poetic language, and he reveals the hidden beauty behind a landscape in Central Russia that may look very plain at first sight. The reader is gradually conducted into the landscape through descriptions, the journey by train, the map, walks, boat rides and fishing expeditions and he/she also becomes acquainted with local people.

Key-words: descriptions of nature in literature, genre, history of the text, the Russian tradition of descriptions of nature, motifs, comparison with Swedish writers of nature, narrative technique, depiction of nature, style.