History of Adyghe Literature: Ii

By Kadir I. Natho

This book "History of Adyghe Literature II" is the continuation of volume I, describes and analyzes the literary works of Adyghe writers in the Soviet Unions and covers the complex and productive creative period of the fifties-sixties of the twentieth century. It shows that, despite the rigid Party regulations and strict frameworks and "conflict-free theory," especially after and before Khrushchev's "thaw" and regardless of constant reproaches and insistence of critics and Party leaders that writers should write only on the themes of revolution, collective farms and Great Patriotic War, how Adyghe writers stubbornly worked and succeeded to create great literary works practically in all literary genres, especially great novels.

I am trying to present this rich, great and interesting literary treasure to the English reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796051612

Kadir I. Natho

Kadir I. Natho was born in 1927 in Hatramtook, Anapa region, Caucasus. He became a refugee in 1943; survived World War II, escaped the First and Second Forced Repatriations to the Soviet Union in 1945 and 1947 from Austria and Italy, respectively; lived in various European countries; and moved to Jordan in 1948. He emigrated from Amman to the United States in 1956 and settled in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the School of American Journalism and Henry George School of Social Science (science of political economy), studied English literature, and took writing courses. His short stories were translated into Turkish and published in Kuzey Kafkasya, one of which was included in the Anthology of the Short Stories of the Caucasus in Turkey. He published a collection of his short stories, Old and New Tales of the Caucasus, in 1969, and a novel, Nicholas and Nadiusha, in 1978, which was translated and published in Russian and Circassian, in Maikop in 1992 and 1993 under the titles of Otchuzhdionyie and Tsif Lyiekher (Outcasts). A part of this novel was also translated in Kabardian and published in a series in the newspaper Adyghe Psale and in the literary magazine Oshhamakho (Elbrus) in 2007 and was included in the Selections of Literature for Reading for eleventh graders in 2013. He wrote a three-act play, Medea, in Circassian, for the State Theater of the Republic of Adyghe, the premiere of which was held in Maikop on April 28–29, 2009, which was well received even by the Russians. It was performed again and again in Maikop, Krasnodar, Nalchik, and Moscow and received first prize in the North Caucasian Drama Festival in Maikop. His Old and New Tales of the Caucasus was included in the student literature of the State University of Adyghey in 2007. He published Circassian History in 2009, which was translated in Turkish, Arabic, and Russian and published in Maikop, Republic of Adyghey; Ankara, Turkey; and in Amman, Jordan, and was translated in Kabardian, in Cherkessk in 2014. He published Memoirs in 2010, which was published in Turkish in Turkey in May 2014 and translated in Russian in Maikop. He translated and published Adighe Khabze, Custom and Traditions, by Professor Seraby Mafedzev and published Grand Abduction in 2017, based on the fact that Circassians had abducted the daughter of General Zass during the Russo-Caucassian War (1786–1864) and now has submitted for publishing the translation of the first volume of History of Adyghe Literature. He acquired G. A. Press in New York City, and, in the 1960s, published for years books and periodicals for Russian and Ukrainian authors and organizations, and his own bilingual magazine, the Circassian Star, in English and Circassian, in order to disseminate Circassian history, culture, and folklore and to revive the national consciousness of the Circassian diaspora. He devoted his time and energy to helping the Circassian community in the United States; was chairman of the Permanent Council of the Circassian Benevolent Association in Wayne, New Jersey (1987–1991); was president of the CBA (1991–1998); and was a delegate of the CBA in the Congress of the International Circassian Association in Nalchik (1991 and 2000), in Maikop (1993), in Cherkessk (1996), and in Krasnodar (1998). He organized the Institute of Circassian Studies as a branch of the CBA for the study of Circassian history, culture, and folklore and translated the books Heroic Epos, NARTS and Its Genesis, by Asker Gadagatl.

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Copyright © 2019 by Kadir I. Natho.

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Rev. date: 08/23/2019

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A SHORT NOTE

Chapter One

ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE FIFTIES-EIGHTIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

(Instead of Introduction)

Chapter Two

TRADITIONS OF T. KERASHEV

AND THE MODERN ADYGHE NOVEL

Chapter Three

MURAT PARANUK

Chapter Four

YUSUF TLIUSTEN

Chapter Five

ASKER EVTIKH

Chapter Six

DMITRY KOSTANOV

Chapter Seven

SAFER YAKHUTL

Chapter Eight

KIRIMIZE ZHANE

Chapter Nine

ASKER GADAGATL

Chapter Ten

KHAZRET ASHINOV

Chapter Eleven

ISKHAK MASHBASH

Chapter Twelve

KHAMID BERETAR

Chapter Thirteen

GISSA SKHAPLOK

Chapter Fourteen

EREGIB MAMII

Chapter Fifteen

PSHIMAF KOSHUBAYEV

Chapter Sixteen

SAFER PANESH

Chapter Seventeen

KADYRBECH KUMPILOV

To my very dear friend professor, academician, patriot,

expert of world literature, and distinguished literary critic—

the late Kazbek Shazzo (may his soul rest in peace in paradise),

the author of many books, plays, and valuable articles on Adyghe

(Circassian) literature in both Adyghe and Russian languages

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My profound gratitude to Bunyamin Akyuuz and Ms. Dina Mikitiva, for constantly treating me with great Adyghe Khabza and helping me with my computer problems while working on this book. May God generously bless them and my dear wife, Suad Natho, with a long, happy, healthy and prosperous life for their kind attention and devotion to me.

A SHORT NOTE

In translating History of Adyghe Literature, I retained as closely as possible the Russian version of pronunciations and spellings of first names and surnames of the authors in this book, instead of trying to spell them closer to their Adyghe version. I also left in this work some Adyghe words and short texts in Cyrillic, giving only their English translation.

Published by the decision of the Academic Council of the Institute of Humanitarian Studies of the Republic of Adyghey

E d i t o r i a l B o a r d:

K. G. Shazzo – Doctor of philology, professor, member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS) and the International Academy of Sciences (AIAS), the author and manager of the project, and chief editor;

R. G. Mamii – Doctor of philology, member of AIAS;

A. A. Skhaliakho – Doctor of philology, professor, member of AIAS, and Honored Scholar of the Russian Federation;

Sh. Kh. Khut – Doctor of philology, member of AIAS;

T. N. Chamokov – Doctor of philology, professor, member of AIAS;

Kh. G. Tleptsershe – Candidate of philology, associate [rofessor; and A. Yu. Chirg – Candidate of history, professor, member of AIAS.

A u t h o r s o f t h e S e c o n d V o l u m e :

M. Sh. Kunizhev – Candidate of philology, professor, member of AIAS;

R. G. Mamii, U. M. Panesh – Doctor of philology, professor, member of AIAS;

A. A. Skhaliakho, Kh. G. Tleptsershe, A. K. Tkhakushinov – Doctor of sociology, professor, member of AIAS;

M. N. Khachemizova – Candidate of philology, associate professor;

F. N. Khuako – Candidate of philology, associate professor;

K. G. Shazzo, Sh. E. Shazzo – Candidate of philology;

E. P. Shibinskaya – Candidate of philology, professor; and

S. S. Skhalakhova.

E d i t o r s o f S e c o n d V o l u m e :

K. G. Shazzo and R. G. Mamii

This book, which is in front of you, is the continuation of History of Adyghe Literature and constitutes its second volume. Volume I was published in 1999 and covered the period from the middle of the fifties of the twentieth century. Volume II is devoted to the complicated, fruitful period of the fifties to the eighties. The two previously planned volumes could not cover the whole course of literature, and this circumstance necessitated the continuation of this work. Volume III, on which the team of authors is working, covers problems of the development of literature in new conditions beginning from the middle of the nineties.

Researching and writing the second volume of History of Adyghe Literature called for the participation of the following contributors:

Ch. I. Adyghe Literature of the fifties and eighties of the twentieth century (instead of Introduction") – U. M. Panesh (the last, twelfth, part, which is devoted to drama, is written by A. K. Tkhakushinov)

Ch. II The Traditions of T. Kerashev and the Contemporary Novel – E. P. Shibinskaya

Ch. III Murat Paranuk" – M. Sh. Kunizhev

Ch. IV Yusuf Tliusten – R. G. Mamii

Ch. V Asker Evtikh – R. G. Mamii

Ch. VI Dmitrii Kostanov – A. A. Skhaliakho

Ch. VII Safer Yakhutl – A. A. Skhaliakho

Ch. VIII Kirimize Zhane – A. A. Skhaliakho

Ch. IX Asker Gadagatl – A. A. Skhaliakho

Ch. X Khazret Ashinov – Kh. G. Tleptsershe

Ch. XI Iskhak Mashbash – K. G. Shazzo, Sh. E. Shazzo

Ch. XII Khamid Beretar – M. Sh. Kunizhev

Ch. XIII Gissa Skhaplok – A. A. Skhaliakho

Ch. XIV Eregib Mamii – S. S. Shkhalakhova

Ch. XV Pshimaf Koshubayev – F. N. Khuako

Ch. XVI Safer Panesh – F. N. Khuako

Ch. XVII Kadirbech Kumpilov – M. N. Khachemizova

Chapter One

ADYGHE LITERATURE IN THE FIFTIES-EIGHTIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

(INSTEAD OF INTRODUCTION)

The debunking of the cult of personality and attempts to abandon totalitarianism and the dogmatic approach to the nature of socialism have prepared in the fifties of the twentieth century a fertile ground for the development of democratic norms of human interrelationship and for awakening the social activity of the masses and of every individual separately.

The intensification of the socially-critical direction¹ in assessing the past and present, which was noted during the first thaw, has defined the literary consciousness of society in many ways. This is evidenced by the noticeable shift in emphasis in literature, which has moved forward along the path of competently and artistically expressed combination of the truth of fact and fiction (Battalions Are Asking for Fire by Yu. Bondarev, Bitter Grasses by P. Proskurin, Face to Face by Ch. Aytmatov, The Third Rocket by V. Bykov, People in the Swamp by I. Melezh, Flowering of Vines by K. Gamsakhurdy, God’s World by B. Pasternak, Kazan University by E. Evtushenko, and so on).

A higher level of ideological and aesthetic interpretation of life also became characteristic of Adyghe literature (The Last Shot by T. Kerashev, The Ozhbanokovs by Yu. Tliusten, The White Water Lily by D. Kostanov, The Street in All Its Length by A. Evtikh, They Do Not Wait for the Bewailed by I. Mashbash, The Rider Is Crossing Rapid River by Kh. Ashinov, The Indivisible Share by Kh. Beretar, Cherry Trees by N. Kuyok, and others). In the works of the abovementioned writers are manifested such universally significant tendencies as a rapid departure from the historical eventual and descriptive narrative toward the artistic-voluminous, concentrated problem-analytical depiction.

The deepening of the analytical and cognitive beginning in young national literatures led to intensive quests for genre and style formations previously unknown to them. Increasing attention to the phenomenon of the separate individual, which is associated with meaningful sociopolitical changes, highlighted the idea of the self-esteem meaning of personality, which, in its turn, sustained interest in the spiritual world and in the vicissitudes of psychological life.

Traditional forms of the panoramic novel and fictionalized epic poem began to alter. The wide historical epic, which draws the social atmosphere of society and, at the same time, uses the family chronicle of the polyphonic plan, still retained its positions. But, at the same time, the tendency gained hold in literature, testifying to the transformation of the familiar panoramic traditions. Tendencies, which aspired to combine the multiplane and breadth with in-depth and condensate image of characters, became activated in prose and poetry.

Artistic and analytical directions, which are observed in the novels of the Russian writer V. Rasputin, the Georgian author K. Gamsakhurdy, and Estonian author A. Hint are as if typologically being repeated in the historical works of T. Kerashev, in the novels of A. Evtikh, and in the verses and poems of I. Mashbash and Kh. Beretar. The shift of the center of gravity toward the display of large and bright heroes and the intensification of the sociopsychological analysis were the result of the historical changes in the social and cultural-historical character.

The need to further comprehend the emerged sociopolitical problems and, further, to transfer them into the realm of contemporary moral relations required decisive ideological and aesthetic searches. Conceptually, these quests were tied with the liberation of artists from the stereotyped and simplistic ideas about the surrounding life, with their realization of the increased value of every individual and understanding of the richness and diversity of the traits of new relationship. The liberation of the artistic consciousness of writers and their release from specific, regulated norms led to a further expansion of the thematic range of prose and poetry, a movement toward the diversity of artistic form. This became the characteristic feature of the surveyed phase of the development of literature.

Movement toward the problematic and aesthetic diversity was manifested, first, in the works on historical and historical revolutionary theme. New structural compositional and style forms, which were natural with respect to typology for the then All-Union artistic process, were actively mastered in Adyghe literature as well. The deepening of the content element and the strengthening of the analytical principle led, for example, T. Kerashev, A. Evtikh, D. Kostanov, and I. Mashbash to such new genre formations, which were new for them, as the moral and psychological short story (The Last Shot by T. Kerashev); the historical novel, oriented on an in-depth depiction of the fate of one hero (Carriage-Load of White Stone by A. Evtikh), and a broad historical-revolutionary narrative with elements of the novel-epic (Moss Shovgenov by D. Kostanov).

Creation of works, in which the accent is transferred from events to characters of heroes and in which the predominant importance acquires not the external but the internal conflict, is characteristic also of the poetry of M. Paranuk, K. Zhane, S. Yakhutl, I. Mashbash, Kh. Beretar, N. Kuyok, and others.

Unconventional philosophical and aesthetic comprehension of the usual social and historical problems testified on the turn to greater artistic truth and desire to express the diversity of life in different forms. These processes flowed earlier in time, and with great variety and assumed different forms in highly developed literatures. Similar changes and corresponding evolution of genre structure went through Adyghe prose and poetry based on general sociocultural changes, but with the use of their own national traditions and aesthetic features.

The role of literatures with rich experience and with established principles of reflection is manifested in the fact that they contributed, by their influence, to faster mastery by young literatures of the typological laws of general creative development. In this connection, it can be assumed that the prose and poetry of new-literacy literatures went in many respects along the explored track. But it does not mean that there cannot be original national versions, and genre and stylistic which enriched All-Union literary process.

At this time, the interaction of national literatures also becomes more intensive, which leads not only to mutual enrichment, but also to their leveling. By common belief, the qualitative content of literary interaction is substantially enriched during the last decade. Ch. Guseinov has noted, If previously was mainly spoken of the influence of mature literature [and, first of the Russian] on young and new literatures, today we speak of such influences as the enrichment of developed literatures by the achievements of the literatures that have begun their history only in the Soviet years.² The formed unity of brotherly cultures turned, thus, into a very important factor of development.

The development of domestic literature at that period, which was noted by the press for considerable innovation and aesthetic enrichment, has at the same time clashed with great difficulties. It was due to the positive processes in sociopolitical life that were revealed to be timid and half-hearted. The administrative command system with its bureaucratic apparatus, which existed earlier, has survived and strengthened its positions even more, in time. In the words of M. Gorbachev, it had extremely negative consequences for the society, which in the end was brought to the state of stagnation and put on the brink of crisis.³

The time-provoked and proclaimed idea of the self-esteem meaning of a separate person turned out to be, thus, in contradiction with the dogmatized principles of developed socialism. This is because the planned social critical direction, reinforced by a problem-analytical, in-depth psychological demonstration, did not acquire its corresponding scope. Prose on the modern theme, for example, constantly experienced the upsurge of ideologically hasty conclusions, utopian ideas about the future, and conjectural decisions. Literary process, which is oriented, it would seem, on many-sidedness and artistic diversity, turned into a simplified depiction of real contradictions and deep conflicts.

The painful processes of All-Union scale not only were typologically repeated in Adyghe literature, they flowed in it with great poignancy and were manifested with special visibility. This is due to the little experience of literature, which was trying to solve quickly many aesthetic tasks and to overtake developed literatures having reduced the distance. Therefore, the unevenness, a combination of different levels of artistic depiction, which became an integral feature of the new stage in the development of literature, are reflected in Adyghe prose and poetry with greater force and underlined visibility.

1

Features of the new stage in the development of literature, which was called modern at that time, were expressed, first, in prose, and primarily in the works on the historical-revolutionary and historical themes. Its formation and development largely determined genre and structural-style search for historically a new stage in the evolution of the domestic literature. From the second half of the fifties, and later also in the sixties to eighties, come out tales and novels of T. Kerashev (Abrek [1957] and The Lone Rider [1973], D. Kostanov (Moss Shovgenov [the first book 1970, the second book 1974] and Carriage-Load of White Stone [1971]), A. Evtikh (A Sip of Spring Water [1977] and Barge [1983]), Yu. Tliusten (Maiden Dawns [1971]), and I. Mashbash (Paths from the Night [1971] and Goshevnay [1983]). In them are repeated traditional motives that demonstrate the straightening of the consciousness of the people who were liberated under the influence of the Russian revolutionary movement. The content of such a collision was the result of the very sociohistorical reality. Therefore, it had the right to become the object of artistic research. The other thing is that the ideological and aesthetic, purely artistic content of it at first had a monotonous, schematic character. One cannot at the same time agree with the opinion that this scheme is repeated in literature for half a century without any attempt to deepen or refine it, to grope for the deep problems of human studies behind the sociological layer of the general conflict,⁴ as N. Dzhusoyty wrote about it, in his time. The evolution of historical and historical-revolutionary prose, which was already outlined in the fifties and which was expressed in Adyghe literature, indicates the opposite. The tale Abrek by T. Kerashev prepared, for example, a new stage in typology, characterized by a problem-conceptual and structural-compositional diversity. The novel of A. Shortanov Mountaineers [1954] played the same role in the related Kabardian literature.

Expansion of the problem-thematic and genre-structural ranges of historical and historical-revolutionary prose, the strengthening in it of the analytical principle and concentrated forms of expression—all these features, which are characteristic of the literature of the new type, are manifested in Adyghe prose. Next to the epic novel about the distant past (Bziuk Battle by I. Mashbash) another form finds a place in it the story-parable, the story-legend (The Legend by T. Kerashev), an extensive historical-revolutionary narrative with the elements of the biographical novel (Moss Shovgenov by D. Kostanov), the sociopsychological novel of characters and problems (Carriage-Load of White Stone by A. Evtikh and Paths from the Night by I. Mashbash).

In terms of structural and style search, the formation of a small tale became regular in literature, which condensed graphic means varying in character. Artistic searches of T. Kerashev in the tale of Abrek are associated with a harmonious mix of social and psychological principles. The concentration of artistic thought is achieved at the expense of the confluence of traditional methods of depiction and through comparatively new means, such as the psychologically capacious, individualized character and deepened philosophical thought.

In the sense of ideological problems and studied collisions, the tale continued the widespread traditions in the North Caucasian literatures, and in it are manifested some important tendencies of the analyzed stage of the literary development in the plan of genre searches and compositional structure. The work was based on the transformation of a lone spontaneous lunatic into a conscientious revolutionary Bolshevik leader, which was widespread in literature.

Trying to revive the standard problem, the writer was attempting to deepen its content, to inform its breadth and give to it a sound common to all mankind. Such an approach also determined that in the center of attention is an intellectual character, a thinking and doubting hero. Such a plan determined the corresponding genre and style searches. The writer rejected the usual form of descriptive prose, the broad-based novel, and the style of the epic plan with multiple acting characters. It cannot be said that in Abrek there is no historical event line, which would illustrate the chronicle of the life of the people. But the story line of the tale is held on the movement of views, on the evolution of the spiritual world of the main hero. The historical and event side in this case has no independent meaning—it is meant to confirm and psychologically justify these or other aspects of the inner life of the character.

The features of another model of the domestic historical-revolutionary novel are reflected in the creative work of D. Kostanov. His novel Moss Shovgenov unfolds a complicated and contradictory picture of reality in the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Traditional motives of awakening national consciousness, and the leading role of the Bolsheviks and Russian proletariat in the activation of the will of the people, are revived in the narrative at the expense of connecting the truth of the fiction and the truth of the document. The wide, multifaceted history with many acting persons and story lines had to unite into one artistic drawing in a manner not fictional but of a historically authentic legendary hero and revolutionary, who is familiar to everyone.

Conceived as a narrative about one life, the novel of D. Kostanov was placed in the usual framework of an objectified epic story, generated by the prose of the revolutionary crisis. The Novel of Fate by its nature requires a special psychological analysis. The elements of analytical psychology really were present in the work, about which wrote T. Chamokov in his time.⁵ However, they did not become a decisive beginning for the artistic picture. As R. Mamii notes, event saturation, numerous details of information, overloading the artistic fabric, often do not leave a place for psychological basing for the characters, especially for the main hero.⁶ Nevertheless, notable and natural became the striving of D. Kostanov to update the descriptive trends of the old novel, which finds expression in attempts of more in-depth depictions of the large and historically authentic person. This is especially noticeable in the last part of the work, where the author more actively resorts to various contradictory aspects of the psychological life of the principal hero.

About it speaks also the practice of forming the All-Union literature. As an example, one can name the novel of the Ukrainian author A. Golovko, Artem Garmash [1951–1971], and the work of the Kazakh prose of Kh. Yesenjanov, Yaik – A Light River [1961].

The features of the new ideological aesthetic stage in the literary movement were also reflected in the tale of A. Evtikh, Carriage-Load of White Stone⁷ [1971], estimated by critics as a novel, and in the novel of I. Mashbash, Paths from the Night [1971]. What is remarkable is that the dialectics of the personality in revolution appears in the works of both writers in different angles and in versions of complicated contradictory motives. The writers pay much attention to the conscious man, who grows up quickly and confidently takes the path of the revolutionary rebirth along with the people. Personages of such a plan are vividly represented in the image of Sharib from the novel of I. Mashbash and in the figure of Moss Zhuko of A. Evtikh.

Striving to overcome stereotyped approaches, which are characteristic of the traditional historical-revolutionary novel, I. Mashbash moved to dramatic stories and contradictory conflicts. The main character, Jambolat, himself inflicted by the vices of old ideas, first chooses a mercenary path as a way out. He plans to marry the daughter of Kulak Damokov, in order to break out into people. The author consciously complicates the conflict and animates the artistic drawing. He proposes a more difficult but also a lifelike path of a gradual straightening out of the faith of the erring hero.

Showing the revolutionary revival of the consciousness of the hero, A. Evtikh, in Carriage-Load of White Stone turns to another traditional motive for domestic literature—the theme of sincere, deeply decent intellectual sympathizing with the sufferings of millions and moving to the new truth in a difficult way and with considerable losses. A. Evtikh and I. Mashbash assign a certain place to the portrayal of the external, event side of the plot; at the same time, they use typical situations to describe life, social contradictions and national relations. But it is also indicative that both, one and the other, were not satisfied with such, at first glance, a plausible picture of the world, which was being reconstructed. The writers transferred conflict into the inner world of man, concentrating their attention on the complicated transformation of personality under the influence of revolutionary changes.

The deepening and strengthening of the analytical principle led I. Mashbash and A. Evtikh to the fact that the lens of their attention reveals diverse heroes, who are hesitating, who were on the crossroads for a long time, and who find the way to the truth of the revolution through difficult searches. Collisions connected with the images of Moss Zhuko and Chap in Carriage-Load of White Stone by A. Evtikh are justified by the design of the conflict core. They exist independently and bear a certain ideological artistic load. But the plot-compositional center of the work shifts, and, by its structure, all the attention is concentrated around the new image. Thus looms the figure of Hajji Kolokov, the contradictory hero, who does not immediately grasp the essence of the revolution and makes the necessary historical choice with difficulty.

Changes in the field of the problem-thematic content have also affected the genre and compositional, structural, and stylistic features of the prose. The multifaceted forms of prose, following little proven traditions, occupy a prominent place in the literature of thesixties-seventies; but they did visibly change, acquired the features that corresponded typologically to the new ideological aesthetic stage.

2

The features of the qualitatively new stage of the literary development have reflected as well the formation of the proper historical novel and the narrative forms adjoining it. It should be noted that the searches of Adyghe historical prose could not reflect all the diversities of the genre and stylistic picture of All-Union literature of that period. Yes, a relatively clear differentiation of this type of prose has occurred here only in the sixties. This is due to the undeveloped state of the genre of the historical novel in new-literacy literatures. Such a situation is developing in the Kabardian, Chechen, Karachay, and Balkars prose. At the same time, from the literature of the Adyghe zone and the North Caucasus region, the most illustrative picture in the typological plan was mainly presented by that of Adyghes.

Genre and structural-style quests of the historical prose reveal to be here connected, first of all, with the development of the short story and the brief tale. This is clearly manifested in the creative work of T. Kerashev. The tale The Daughter of Shapsughs comes out, as early as in 1951, filled with the spirit of analysis and artistic research. In the collection Abrek [1959] is published the tale The Revenge of the Horse-Herdsman, and the stories The Word of the Girl, The Lesson of Life, The Legend, and others. In the next decade, T. Kerashev again and again addressed the historical theme; and in 1969, he published a collection of short stories The Old Abadzekh Hunter, in which were included four stories. The works of the author proved to be different in terms of genre modification and saturation with authentic historical material. Some of them can only conditionally be called historical because they address the past of Adyghes. Common to all the mentioned works is the unique aggravation of moral sentiment, associated with folk wisdom, which is addressed to modernity. By this the writer realizes the connection of times long past and today, which is the main task of the historical genre. T. Kerashev gives diverse genre structural forms in a small narrative; it is also gravitating toward the realistic certainty of the social moral tale The Revenge of the Horse-Herdsman and the story-parable The Lesson of Life, with elements of social satire, and a short story, The Legend, which is close to the form of a stylized myth.

In the story The Last Shot, which was included in the last collection (Old Abadzekh Hunter), the essence of the plan of writer is reduced to the fact that the hero, who is characteristic of his work—or rather the antihero, who belongs to the despotic class, poisoned by the accumulative philosophy and justifying everything up to outright violence, becomes not only the main personage but also the plot-compositional center of the work. The conflict in this case is not dispersed, not expressed through the display of opposing characters, but moved into the inner world of the complex character and thus is extremely concentrated and aggravated. Opening the inner world of the antihero, the author does not follow the well-known path of the difficult straightening of the erring character. Alebii, the uncommon and complex character, remains the dignified son of his class, the product of the system that has raised him. The point here is not the rigid social determinism of the character. The hero is sufficiently humanized, which is well confirmed in his own difficult analysis of his own life. The point is that in all cases, T. Kerashev is trying to withstand the logic of development of the living image, without taking him to the frame of the scheme. All this is conveyed by the writer in a complex, synthesized narrative, which includes meditation, recollections, and confessions of the main hero. The intensity of the action is greatly enhanced by the fact that the character is placed in exceptional situation, when his thoughts are extremely sharpened, and painful consciousness is sometimes clarified, and then he loses control over what is happening. As a result, the author creates a psychologically credible image, placed in a concentrated framework of a capacious plot. T. Kerashev approaches the problem of moral choice and responsibility of man before his conscience from the former positions of revolutionary humanism, which is characteristic of historical prose.

Further genre and structural stylistic searches of T. Kerashev became indicative in the typological respect and regular in the plan of the problems that have risen in front of literature. In the beginning of the seventies, the writer addresses again the figure of the legendary Circassian, who has absorbed in himself the collective features of the people. This time, the author chooses a more ambitious form—an epic narrative containing a lyrical beginning and a subjective element. In the novel The Lone Rider [1973], according to plan and the type of hero, the author outlined an entertaining plot, having drawn scenes of courageous feats and rapid adventures. Two elements—event descriptive (associated with folklore poetics and national tradition) and psychologically in-depth artistic analysis—have formed in the novel two dissimilar layers. The plot-compositional rod of the book is formed around the thinking hero, who is experiencing the conflicts of the time. This is the second layer of the novel, realized in doubts, reflections, and heartaches of the character; and it meaningfully deepens its content and enhances the line of psychological analysis. The event plot externally remains for T. Kerashev the main organizer of the artistic components of the work, but its role is considerably reduced. The reduction of distance between the author and the hero and the use of the methods of retrospection, internal monologue, indirect speech, along with socially determined characters, extensive commentary, and detailed circumstances, led to the creation of new, synthesized genre formation.

The tendency of movement toward capacious, spacious, and synthesized genre formations is manifested as well in the work of I. Mashbash. The writer created a number of wide artistic canvas in the seventies, then later in the eighties to the nineties, that presented various modifications of the modern multifaceted historical novel: Bziuk Battle [first book 1976, second book 1978], The Millstone [1994], Two Captives [1996], Khan-Girey [1999], and Reded [2000].⁸

The grand plan, to show the fate of the people at the turning moment and in connection with the historical event, which had for Adyghes an epochal significance, demanded from the writer in the novel Bziuk Battle penetration into the depths of national life. The genre of the novel, gravitating toward the epic, where realistic completeness is achieved at the expense of a wide picture of life and the depiction of deeply individualized characters, could help solve this task. Striving to create a realistic image of the past, the author refers to social relations, national customs, ethnographic details, and legends. The writer, thus, is trying to recreate the unique atmosphere of the reality of the eighteenth century. The past at the same time appears not just as a distant history—it is interpreted as an integral part of a single indivisible human life. The depicted drama is viewed through the prism of intense moral and philosophical searches of the contemporary reality with which the author enhances problem saturation of the work.

Plot, collisions, and arrangement of characters in the novel of I. Mashbash are directly determined by sociohistorical conflict and confrontation between the exploiting classes and the laboring mass. The same features are also characteristic of T. Kerashev’s novel The Lone Rider. Experiencing the impact of typologically common tendencies, which have enriched the old descriptive tradition, Adyghe writers tried at the same time to embark on the path of real poetic analysis and artistic synthesis. T. Chamokov wrote in his time about the attempts to overcome schematism and superficial descriptiveness⁹ in the novel of I. Mashbash.

It is natural that within this programmed conflict situation in general, writers were seeking to deepen the artistic research of the line of human science. I. Mashbash connected it with the idea of the complexity and contradictoriness of every human character. It is precisely the character—multidimensional, ambiguous, and saturated—who must help the reader to comprehend the surrounding world with its contradictions and unpredictable turns. In the historical prose of I. Mashbash, as well as of T. Kerashev, are met different genre and structural trends: one of them is the epically wide, panoramic descriptive, which by itself does not reject analytical thought and psychologically in-depth images. Such a tendency is seen also in the later works of I. Mashbash, in the novels The Millstone, Khan-Girey, and Reded. The writer here too uses the usual form of epic narration, striving by tradition to update them by formulating accented problems and by the display of individualized, psychologically capacious characters. The combination of different genre beginnings and structural stylistic methods, and the use of multifaceted means of artistic analysis reflect in this case, too, the features of the new stage of development.

3

The new period of sociohistorical development, which influenced the turn of art to artistic truth, is reflected with emphatic visibility in the literature about the Great Patriotic War. Adyghe military prose, with its comparatively small-scale and limited number of artistic phenomena, has quite fully expressed the basic patterns of the All-Union literary process.

There were certain shifts and qualitative changes in the process of formation of the military-artistic literature. But the existence of two tendencies remained unchanged—scale depiction of military events and psychologically in-depth, analytical show of the personality of man. To these two tendencies corresponds, according to common assumption, two genre structures: 1) the panoramic, with a wide coverage of historical events and a multitude of acting persons and 2) those that have a more local structure, when the action and the plot are organized around several heroes, while the author writes down their characters with all diligence.¹⁰

During the sixties, within the new ideological and aesthetic period of developed literatures (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Georgian, and others), small works of analytic plan with in-depth psychological analysis came to the foreground. The active invasion of the lyric element in the epic at this time led to the formation of a new genre-specific formation (I See the Sun by N. Dumbadze, To Live until Dawn by V. Bykov, The Thought about You by M. Stelmakh, and others). The subjective forms of perceptions and reflections of the surrounding world have enriched the epic thought, having imparted to it psychological concreteness and bright individuality.

Since the beginning of the seventies in All-Soviet, and in its framework in Adyghe literature, too, there had been a strengthened tendency of great interaction, the fusion of two mentioned genre-structural beginnings. The interest in the individually expressive and psychologically justified character had been preserved. The mobile tale of psychological drama occupies a great place in literature. Strong positions remained for lyric-epic forms. Simultaneously, there was by then an acute interest in epic scale of the narrative able to commensurate the fate of an individual with the historical process and national life.

An important role belongs to the documentary genres in enriching and renewing the military artistic prose. The flowering of the literature of military memoir in the seventies led to the fact that it had a tangible influence on the creative military prose of the recent years. According to L. Ivanova, the synthesis of the documentary and creativity became one of the typological features of the military prose of recent years.¹¹

These significant, essential, and typologically principled aspects of the overall artistic process repeat the ways of development of the wartime prose in Adyghe literature. At the same time, national-specific features, which are caused by special, historical-cultural, and aesthetic conditions of formation, have a certain place in it. A new level of ideological and artistic interpretation of the military theme caused a marked revival of small- and medium-sized genre structures, especially of the story and tale. In terms of coverage of events and geographical space, these works could be considerably limited. They did not have the usual heroic scope and the panoramic coverage of many actors. But attempts to correlate philosophical and moral queries and intense moral feelings with the military theme allowed the works, which have local structure, to make a considerable step along the way of joining artistic analysis with the synthesis.

Accentuated lyrical and purely personal approach to the military theme and to that objective life material, which used to rise with it, united the works of A. Evtikh, I. Mashbash, Kh. Ashinov, P. Koshubayev, and Kh. Teuchezh, and testified to the movement of prose toward new qualitative gains. Enthusiasm for the lyrical element and absolutizing the individual view could at the same time lead to distortion not only of the truth of a separate fact, but also of the historical reality in general. Therefore, an in-depth analysis, complete stylization, and psychological reliability were required. The combination of the lyrical-epic beginning with analytical traditions was caused by the typological general necessity of a more truthful and authentic depiction of war. Lyrical breathing helped, for example, Kh. Ashinov to get rid of descriptiveness in the tale The Last Week of August, which was included in the collection Conviction [Maikop, 1970]. The story, which is built on the intonation of trust, left an imression on the reader. But the reliance only on personal experience somewhat narrowed the artistic thought. To make a personal impression grow to a large-scale, universally significant generalization required careful artistic analysis and the psychological filling of characters. The author has not yet succeeded to achieve this either in the title work or in other military novels, which were included in the collection (Plains Turn into Mountains) [Maikop, 1975].

Typologically, general movement toward the synthesis of lyrics and epic is manifested in another work by P. Koshubayev—Seven Rainy Days [Maikop, 1971].

The concept of the moral growth to manhood of the character of the young hero in special military conditions required the activation of artistic means. Narration in this case comes from the name of the hero, and the main, structure-forming element is the lyrical feeling, which is associated with the worldview of the young character.

Missing in the tale is a direct story about the events of the war years; the very action of the work is even pushed away from that time. However, the war is present invisibly in the life of each, determining the fate not only of those who took part in it, but also of the next generation, who revealed themselves to be the hostages of its severe consequences. Turning to the philosophically important problem of the moral consequences of the historically critical event, the author did not follow the path of the heroic-epic narrative. He chose the form of the externally insignificant story, behind which is opened a dynamic action, compressed from recollection and mental movements.

The chain of events, which form the plot, is composed of the narrative about seven ordinary days from the life of a teenager. The action begins when the hero of the tale, Kaplan, notices unexpected changes in the behavior of his father. Soon, the quite-intelligent boy begins to understand the psychological background of what is happening to his father. Trying to get rid of the memories of the past, about the woman who brought to his home confidence and tranquility, but untimely died under the weight of the military misfortune, Kasey begins to meet with the carefree, beautiful Khariet. Thinking to hide in another new reality, he even tries to acquire another dog. But life shows that it is not so easy to get rid of the past and that the past remains an inseparable part of today’s life.

Saturated with such philosophically significant problems, the author places the narrative in intense action limited in time but complex in structure. The elements of the plot, presented with a certain sequence, have significant importance for the perception of the ideological and artistic content of the work. But more important thimg reveals to be the retrospective plan that develops in parallel and is associated with the image of the wife of Kasey. This collision includes in the tale a military theme, which is interpreted not in the traditional heroic aspect but in a deep, dramatic interpretation.

The essential features of the military prose at the new stage of its development have also manifested themselves in the novels They Don’t Wait for the Bewailed [1966] and Man Is Not Born Twice [1968], and in the Russian translation One Hundred and One Pass [1972] by I. Mashbash. It is indicative that the writer rejected the usual construction of the panoramic novel and turned to the synthesized lyric-epic narrative, where the action is organized around one or several personages. At the same time, the author follows the path of depiction of deeply motivated and psychologically sound characters. This is facilitated by the fact that I. Mashbash does not disperse contradictions and does not distribute them according to the known scheme between the positive and negative characters.

In the center of attention in the novel They Don’t Wait for the Bewailed stands the ambiguous hero with a complicated fate. The false news about the death of his family and a number of other circumstances that do not depend on it lead to the fact that Tagir, captured, remains abroad after the war. The long and difficult journey home, the moral return, the gradual and agonizing recovery of the personage turns out to be the object of artistic analysis. Still more tangled and complicated are the content and the outline of the novel Man Is Not Born Twice. Two close friends are involved by the writer in difficult and hard-to-explain sociomoral relations. Still before the war, Tram Tausov beat the foreman of the collective farm, hid himself in the forest, and became an Abrek—an outlaw. He did not come out from the forest even when the war began. And now his friend and milk brother Aslan Darimokov, lieutenant of militia, must find and neutralize him. Everything seemed to be simple and clear. But really, the situation reveals itself to be mixed up and complicated. The hidden duel of two friends-enemies has deep roots. The externally positive personage in this border situation proves to be an insolvent personality, but Tram Tausov, the Abrek, a gusty and frequently erring man, shows an uncommon integrity and real moral qualities.

Trying to show the complex evolution of the hero, who makes mistakes but overcomes spiritual turmoil, the writer connects in his mind a chain of different times. Therefore, events develop in different plans: what is happening today is interspersed with what was before and now comes to life in the memories of the heroes. This is also connected with the fact that in the novels of I. Mashbash, there is no usual advanced action for the preceding military prose. The jerky, uneven development of the plot; the disordered, inconsistent time frame, and the content of internal monologues—all these are designed to contribute to the creation of a complex, contradictory image that corresponds to the plan of the author.

Having addressed the concept of man in war, I. Mashbash approached it in the aspect of solving contemporary philosophical and moral and humanistic problems. Such an approach, typologically natural for the public literature of the sixties-seenties, found a vivid reflection in the works of many writers—O. Gonchar, V. Bykov, N. Dumbadze, V. Rasputin, Yu. Bondarev, K. Simonov, and others. The shift in emphasis toward the effort of the philosophical, problematic potential of prose can also be traced to Adyghe writers. This is evidenced by The Track of Man by A. Evtikh, The Last Week of August by Kh. Ashinov, and The Duty by P. Koshubayev. Artists move to portray complex collisions of moral choice, painful searches, and dramatic delusions of the heroes. It is important that each writer goes his own way to solve these problems.

The emphatic personal, lyrical principle introduces constructive artistic idea into the forward and even action of the tale The Last Week of August by Kh. Ashinov. I. Mashbash and P. Koshubayev were turning to a more dynamic and complicated composition in their abovementioned works. Their plot is often interrupted by the memories, philosophical and moral reflections, and lyrical experiences of the heroes and of the author himself. The story from the third person is transformed into the interested commentary of one or the other character. Indirect speech, internal monologue, dreaming, and all kinds of psychological associations emerge and become effective means of artistic display. Both writers are thus trying to join the synthesis of lyrics and epic with the deep analysis of reality.

A considerable step in this direction is made by the tale The Track of Man by A. Evtikh in the collection under the same name [Maikop, 1971]. Using epic intonations of life itself, the author builds event plot and creates socially oriented characters. At the same time, the entire narrative is passed through the lyrical suffering of the author, who goes from commentator to interested storyteller with his clearly expressed intellectual and emotional person. The principle of polyphony, which becomes an important property of A. Evtikh’s style, is realized in this tale at the expense of the lyrical monologues, indirect speech, and individualized stream of consciousness.

The narrative manner and the corresponding typologically new stage of literary development do not always endure with A. Evtikh and other Adyghe writers, which once again confirms the idea of the difficulties that accompanied the development of the new-literacy literatures. The projected discord in the hero’s soul and complex searches that unfold in him sometimes receive from I. Mashbash, A. Evtikh, P. Koshubayev, and others insufficient psychological justification. In such cases, the writer has to turn to traditional description.

The solution of the military theme in the aspect of the moral and philosophical searches of the contemporary man led Adyghe writers to a fuller, saturated, and in-depth portrayal of the personality in his links with the surrounding world. The connection of the objectified display of reality with the transformed, which is passed through individual consciousness of a personal sense of the world, is the synthesis of monologue and epic principles conducive to the creation of new genre-structural forms.

4

The projected movement in literature, since the end of the fifties, "to the socially concrete person, thoroughly portrayed psychologically,¹² and such feature as diversity of artistic forms, were manifested especially expressively in the prose on the modern theme. The advancement of the contemporary problem to the forefront was due to the historical significance of sociopolitical changes, which entailed tectonic shifts in the field of philosophical and the moral-psychological comprehension of the time.

An intensification of objectivity and a more in-depth study of reality begin from the genre of the essay. According to I. Zolotussky, the essay came about as the geologist with a hammer in his hand and ‘tapped’ those places, where prose had to come.¹³ The activation of the problem essay, which is addressed to various aspects of life and is oriented to analyses of complicated human mutual relationships, to the display of the initiative of a separate individual, also became characteristic of Adyghe literature. On it testify the artistic journalistic activities of T. Kerashev, A. Evtikh, D. Kostanov, Yu. Tliusten, and others.

The tendency for variety in artistic forms, which became a typological feature of the domestic literature, led to the activation of new genre and structural formations. The changes touched first of all the epically much-embracing event prose, which took considerable steps toward analytical and psychologically in-depth portrayal. In this sense is characteristic the evolution of the creative works of T. Kerashev, A. Evtikh, D. Kostanov, Yu. Tliusten, S. Panesh, Yu. Chuiako, and others. The convergence of social problems with moral and ethical ones, and the intensification of research principles were conducive to the emergence of unusual, untraditional genre-stylistic formations. This visibly activated the lyric-epical, poetically concentrated prose (Kh. Ashinov, P. Koshubayev, and Yu. Chuiako) and the novel spreads, synthesizing several structural and style layers, skillfully using all the benefits of polyphony and deep subtext (A. Evtikh, I. Mashbash, and S. Panesh).

The subjective-narrative manner, the way of retrospective study of complex and contradictory character, and the method of the unchained confession of the hero—all these and other new tendencies for prose testified to the qualitatively high level of artistic display of the present.

The tangible rise of the lyrical beginning in domestic prose in the sixties, which resulted from the increased interest in the inner world of the contemporary man, caused corresponding genre and structural changes in Adyghe literature. The increased trend toward lyricism is felt in the epically unfolded works of T. Kerashev (The Daughter of a Smart Mother [1963]), Yu. Tliusten "The Ozhbanokovs" [1962], D. Kostanov The White-Water Lily [1968], I. Mashbash Do a Good Deed [1981], S. Panesh The Brothers Shavayekovs [1981]), and others. This is not simply about the presence of the lyrical element as one of the means of artistic reflection, but about the attempts to give it an organizing and defining role.

This new tendency in the domestic literature, caused by the desire to present utmost truth of our common life that has passed through my heart,¹⁴ is reflected especially brightly in the creative work of Kh. Ashinov. In the stories and tales included in the collections Fellow Tavellers [1956], Trees in the Wind [1960], Two Strips [1963], "The Snowball Tree" [1966], Zafak – Miracle-Dance [1969], This Song Is Sung by Men [1980], and The Sorrowful Story [1992], the surrounding reality is presented not just from the side but through the perceptions of the interested storyteller. The events and the people, human connections, and frequently used collisions are passed through the feelings of the author or of the lyrical character close to him in spirit. In the works The Odd, The Day of Arrival, I Looked Back – Saw, The Snowball Tree, The Last Matchmaking, The Trees in the Wind, and others are presented the attributes of time; in them rise the familiar contours of the contemporary Adyghe village with its social relationships, national ceremonies, a specific way of life, and a special moral and psychological style.

In the tale Two Strips, for example, behind the common love story appears the complex world and actual problems of reality. Subject-plot intrigue is connected in the work with the exacerbation of the moral feeling. The central hero, Smeil Guchetl, suddenly becomes convinced that his beloved girl is strongly bound by the fetters of private property interests. The drama is intensified by the fact that the roots of the disease have penetrated into the consciousness of the loved one much deeper than it seemed at first. The arising contradictions are revealed in the movement of the plot, complete in its content. The epic-narrative beginning appears, thus, as one of the necessary artistic elements of the creative work, but the main structure-forming principle becomes the emotionally colored lyrical feeling. The style commonality of the works of Kh. Ashinov, with the tales that appeared later of T. Koshubayev Heart Is Given for Heart [1969], of P. Koshubayev and Yu. Chuyako (Someone Else’s Pain [1983] is evident. The epic beginning in them, too, becomes part of the aesthetic phenomenon; but the clearly expressed artistic suffering of the hero in the articulated artistic thought plays a large role. The aesthetic tendency, which measures personal experience, individual sensation with the truth of the century, was the phenomenon of typology common for the All-Union literature. It flowed from the changes, which had partially destroyed the dogmatic notions about the place of man in society and affirmed the idea of the intrinsic value of the individual. The intensification of the personal beginning was conducive not only to deepening the matter of the problem, but also considerably modifying the genre and style picture of artistic phenomena. The main structure-forming method in the tale Day Stars by O. Berggolz becomes autobiographical confession, which deprived the narrative of the usual genre boundaries. Concerning Adyghe writers, the penetration of the lyric element in their work did not destroy at first the traditional form, but considerably has enriched it, having given new features to it.

Criticism has repeatedly noted the evolution of the lyrical personage of Kh. Ashinov.¹⁵ In his first stories and tales, the world of the lyrical hero is greatly limited. But with time the character of the personage is filled with the content of more weight and depth. Already, in such works as Snowball Tree, Bead, Trees in the Wind, and Alychae Trees, rises the image of man with the individualized inner world and determines moral sense. It is clear that in the genres of lyric prose, much depends on the image, which is placed in the center of the narrative because it becomes the organizer of the ideological and artistic content of the work. The need for a wider sociohistorical depiction leads to the fact that the boundaries of the genre are noticeably widened and approach a more extensive form—the varieties of the lyric-epic novel of accented problems and individualized characters.

In the novels The Rider Crosses Stormy River [1966] and The Lotus [1967] by Kh. Ashinov, the narrative is given in the third person. But the distance between the author and the main hero is revealed to be very insignificant. The epic picture of the surrounding world, which is suggested by the author, is fused with his lyrical perception. Two different poetic elements are united by the problem acute and profound in content. In the novel The Rider Crosses Stormy River, the writer once more addresses the sociopsychological type of narration, which is not spread much in general Adyghe prose. Laursen Kanokov, who is intelligent with much life experience and already fixed beliefs, becomes the hero of the work. He comes to his native village to work on a dissertation on material on national folklore. Laursen is interested in the folk art in the questions of human dignity, which are related by the hero to the life behavior of a man and his relationship with a woman. It soon turns out that the scientific interest of the hero is closely connected with his moral and philosophical views and personal destiny. To this testifies his tiffs with his beloved wife, which become the result of erroneous perceptions of the concepts of courage and manly honor. The object of the display of the tale, thus, becomes the complex dynamics of the scientific thought in the consciousness of the hero and the falsity of his life choice.

To illustrate more clearly the complex problem thus posed, the writer uses the synthesized lyrical-epic form of the short novel. The noticeable thickening of poetic thought is facilitated by the introduction into the specific-realistic fabric works of folklore-mythological line. The events of reality and human relations are not only reinterpreted and passed through the artistic consciousness of the author but are also presented to the perception of the clearly individualized lyric hero. In this complex text in content and form is harmoniously interweaved a lyrical-romantic plan, addressed to the legend of Adyif.

All the artistic components, image-associative lines and collisions filled with acute problems form a single aesthetic whole, the purpose of which is to overcome a certain chamber nature, which is characteristic of traditional genres of the lyrical prose. The artistic analysis, aimed at a high degree of generalization, leads to the fact that the content of the novel is not exhausted by the depiction of the difficult process of the birth of the new cordial suffering of the hero.

Genre and style searches of Kh. Ashinov and the appearance of a special kind of lyric-epic tale and short novel associated with them were conditioned by typologically general processes, which took place in the All-Union literature in the middle of the sixties. This explains the influence the artist had on the formation of the creative work of some writers. From the story, where the author leans on the personal experience and where the main engine of action becomes the feeling of the lyric hero, P. Koshubayev goes to more complex and large-scale forms. In the tale The Prophecy of Fate [1984], he turns to intensive, acute topic story, where the problem of choosing the path of life, the theme of the moral self-determination of the mountaineer woman is solved through the display of the image of the woman, who is challenging generally accepted moral standards and certain aspects of national etiquette. Such an aggravation of the topic required the author to activate the epic plan and intensify the importance of the sociohistorical principle in the narrative. Such tendency enriches lyrical, individually personal forms of display and imparts accuracy and actual completeness to imagery.

The attempt to reflect the moral and philosophical searches of the contemporary writer by diverse artistic forms led Yu. Chuyako to similar in character ideological and aesthetic solutions. The motive of getting personal spiritual courage is examined in his tale Someone Else’s Pain [1987] through the show of test in a complex situation when the hero has to make a difficult choice. Trying to create intense action, the writer turns to different sides of life activities of the personage.

The formation of new genre structures, caused by the activation of the personal principle and interpenetration of the lyrics and epic, was expressed later in the seventies-eighties in the formation of the tale-biography and novel of upbringing. This general trend, which was manifested in the works of O. Berggolz Day Stars, V. Soloukhin A Drop of Dew, R. Gamzatov My Daghestan is more noticeable in the autobiographical book of memoirs by I. Mashbash, Common Courtyard [1985]. For the work became characteristic that the lyrical and confessional beginning turned into a structure-forming factor. The author, who is narrating about himself, is not only the central hero of the narrative. Personal perception becomes the technique that synthesizes all other artistic means. This contributed to the origin in Adyghe literature of such earlier unknown genre forms as the unfolded novel-recollection, the tale-diary, and the tale-biography.

The deepening of the problem, which was caused by the need for a more complete and diverse portrayal of the contemporary man, led Adyghe writers to active genre and structural searches. The intensification of the sociocritical trend, alienation, especially among young writers, and the superficial descriptive tendencies, which were common in art of the forties-fifties, demanded research and analytical approach. Typologically common for most of the national literatures was that the solution of such difficult tasks caused the need to address primarily the mobile and operative genres of the story and the tale. In Adyghe literature, they were so significant in ideological and artistic terms that they considerably influenced the formation of the typological new stage of prose.

5

The overwhelming majority of Adyghe writers were bound to the village with strong roots. Therefore, the village becomes that basic material through which the general moral and philosophical problems of the era were mastered. If we talk about Russian literature, then village prose presents here not just a group of works of a certain problem-thematic line but also the conceptual and genre-structural plan clubbed together. This is evidenced by V. Belov, Two Winters and Three Summers by F. Abramov, King-Fish by V. Astafyev, and many others. This kind of independent ideological and aesthetic sound as the village prose Adyghe literature did not acquire. But the processes that took place in the countryside, the patterns and contradictions in their development, helped writers approach the philosophical and ethical issues of the era with new genre-compositional and style forms.

Already in the novels of T. Kerashev Contest with Dream [1955] and D. Kostanov Where Rivers Merge [1957] are reflected some significant aspects of the complex reality of the fifties. In the problem-thematic respect, these works would adjoin the prose, which was exploring the destruction of the age-old social everyday way of life in the conditions of profound sociopsychological and scientific and technical changes. Demonstrative and typologically logical was the address of the abovementioned authors to the motives of active, creatively active leader who embodied the traits of the hero and who appeared in literature in the new historical era.

We have already mentioned above the superficial approach in the