The Poetics of the Unspoken: The Artistic World of Zinaida Katkova's Novel "The Addressee Has Left"

This article is devoted to a comprehensive literary analysis of the Russian-language novella "The Addressee Has Left" (1976) by Zinaida Fedorovna Katkova, a Mari bilingual writer of the second half of the 20th century, which is examined in the context of the phenomenon of "quiet prose" in Russian literature of the 1970s. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the first attempt to analyze this novella, which, like the rest of Katkova's Russian-language works, remains on the periphery of academic discourse. The purpose of this work is to identify and describe the holistic artistic system of the story, which is formed at the intersection of the classical traditions of Russian literature (I.S. Turgenev, A.P. Chekhov, etc.) and the poetics of Soviet "chamber" prose. The specific subject of research in this article is the poetics of the unsaid in the artistic system of the story "The Addressee Has Left." The methodological basis of this study is a synthesis of structural-semantic, historical-genetic, and comparative-typological analysis of literary texts that corresponds to the purpose of the work. The research proves that the dominant principles of the poetics of the unsaid in Zinaida Katkova's novel "The Addressee Has Left" are a retrospective composition that models the workings of a traumatized consciousness, a system of artistic images and details rich in symbolism, and the plot-forming role of subtext, which transforms silence into the main engine of conflict (the conflict unfolds not in the realm of eventful confrontations, but in the realm of unspokenness). It is noted that Zinaida Katkova's artistic world exists in an intensive, consciously constructed dialogue with the Russian classical tradition, which allows us to speak about deep-seated intertextuality as a crucial element of her poetics (the Turgenev paradigm, Chekhov's poetics, and the explicit archetypal elements derived from Russian literature). The article identifies the place of Zinaida Katkova's work in the literary process of her era and outlines some prospects for its further study. It is concluded that the story "The Address Has Been Removed" is a profound artistic exploration of the nature of human relationships, the fragility of mutual understanding, and ultimately, the possibility of redemption and forgiveness through the restoration of a broken connection, symbolized by a letter that finally finds its intended recipient.

Mari Russian-language literature, Zinaida Katkova, quiet prose, artistic world, poetics of the inexpressible, artistic detail, subtext, retrospective composition, literary tradition, psychologism