Andrić and Pasternak: Two Novels about Creativity (the problems of winter's semantics)

Abstract

This paper compares the poetics of two novels: The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić and Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Both historical novels are “atypical” (chronicle / vita sacrum), and relate to time (linear time / overcoming of linear time; long period of time / moment) and space (Vishegrad / “throughout Russia”; statics / movement) differently. Both novels, however, narrate about an indestructible artistic creation that transcends all ideas of time, and about a work of art, made of stone (the bridge) or of language (poetry), which surpasses the present and creates a sense of being beyond time and in eternity. While winter and the cold in Andrić’s novel mark the end of the work on the bridge, in Pasternak’s novel winter presents a time of inspired creativity. The paper offers an analysis of motifs of winter and the cold not only through climatological and geographical prisms, but also from the perspective of the game and the relationship between the warmth on the inside and the cold on the outside, through the prism of folklore and sacral elements.

For citation
Vojvodić J. Andrić and Pasternak: Two Novels about Creativity (the problems of winter's semantics) // Slavic Almanac. 2020. Issues 3–4. P. 289–313. DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2020.3-4.4.01