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“But is the bed cold to the dead”: the thanatological discourse in Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Notebooks

The article analyzes specificity of the thanatological discourse in Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Notebooks, which allows to present his work as a single metatext, elaborating different variations of thanatological poetics. The category of death is considered as an integral basis of V. Shalamov's work, which eventually leads to understanding his own attitude to death as an ontological, epistemological and axiological basis of life and creative work. The article examines different modes of death in Kolyma Notebooks: death as an essential component of the lyrical hero's mind, unattainability of rest, death as the embodiment of historical memory, art as victory over death, and the idea of purification and rest of the soul through creative work. Thanatological discourse of Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Notebooks is seen as an integral artistic world with the image of the lyrical hero-creator at its center, gradually passing through all stages of dying, as a complex of subjects and images, united not only by the theme of physical death, but also by the idea of memory and creativity as a symbol of victory over moral and bodily decay. The article demonstrates how the thanatological character goes along the difficult path from contamination by death to complete spiritual purification, fulfilling the mission of the creator, the poet, called to capture in his work disintegration of personality, inevitably arising under the influence of difficult circumstances of life, and thus he not only relieves himself of deep spiritual distress and finds eternal peace, but also helps to restore historical justice.