THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF A CRIMEAN RESORT IN OLENA ZVYACHNA’S NOVELLA “THE PEASANT SANATORIUM”

Abstract

This article analyzes the specific features of the representation of Crimean everyday life in Olena Zvychayna’s novella “The Peasant Sanatorium” through the lens of the interaction between artistic space and everyday practices, as well as through the characters’ experiences of illness and the approach of death while staying at the resort. It is established that the sanatorium is associated with the author's heterotopias – places with strange and illogical rules, in which the contradictions of social structures are revealed. The main character's everyday life is shaped by changing locations – from a poor city room to the comfortable sanatorium space, from the lively Yalta waterfront to a small Tatar suburb. This spatial unfolding allows us to see the contrasts between the resort’s outward prosperity and the hidden social contradictions within the Soviet Union.
The characters’ looks become important elements of resort life. Clothing, cosmetics, and personal hygiene practices are used to describe the characters and reveal the value-based oppositions within the text. An analysis of these details allows us to examine the characters’ attitudes toward their reality and the behavioral patterns prevailing in the resort environment.
Special attention is paid to the toposes of illness and death, interpreted through the lens of anthropological studies of rites of passage. It has been established that the isolation of the sick character, the organization of her transfer to hospital, and her funeral reproduce the process of separation, the liminal stage of transition and incorporation into the world of the dead, while the concealment of her death highlights the practices of marginalization and silencing typical for a totalitarian system. It has been demonstrated that Crimean everyday life in the novella is an important means of artistically interpreting Soviet reality and preserving the memory of the totalitarian experience.