Yu. K. Vella’s book Breeze from the Lake: an exploration of authorial myth-making
This paper analyzes the fiction book Breeze from the Lake (2008) by the prominent Nenets writer Yuri Kylevich Vella, a work that has not previously been the subject of specialized academic study. The aim is to identify the sources and characterize the literary scenarios of his authorial myth-making. The study establishes that the very architecture of the book, constructed on a “7x7” principle, expresses the author’s mythopoetic intention to capture the fullness of human existence in connection with the fullness of the universe. Serving as the foundational conceptual element of the entire work, the breeze from the lake myth interconnects with and complements other authorial myths such as those of music, higher powers, the hearth, the taiga master, and love. Each of these is directly embodied in one of the book’s seven parts. The author tends to actualize the substantive potential of the Nenets folklore repertoire, which seamlessly integrates into the overall narrative. By combining everyday situations with traditional mythological motifs, Vella achieves a sense of authorial detachment and offers the reader a capacity for evaluative variability. A detailed compositional analysis of Breeze from the Lake suggests that Vella’s myth-making results from a distinctive creative strategy. This strategy aims to construct a personal artistic worldview that preserves the genetic memory of the northern ethnic group’s mythopoetic matrix while imbuing it with new, original content shaped by the author’s personal life and aesthetic experience.
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