Aspects of Identity in East European Rural Novels

Abstract

Previously neglected, the village provided perennial values, complex human types, true dramas and clearly stated moral values. The Romantics discovered the bliss of nature and the vast resources of the peasants' ‘way of life', the naturalistic and realistic writers focused on social issues, whereas the populists reacted against the naturalistic excesses and wanted to preserve the virtues and the purity of the village. Such developments were typical of the countries relying on the agricultural sector, mainly those in the Eastern part of the Europe, although some references to Zola, Balzac, Maupassant, Hardy, Ibáñez complete the panorama of the rural novel. The rural prose, in general, shows some common traits regarding the values of the community which integrates the values of the individual, the protagonist who is strong and full of contradictory energies causing violent incidents, the omniscient author who tells the story without emotional attachment in an efficient style which reveals a refined architecture. One of the recurrent motifs is the land – a symbol of peasants' permanence as well as a metaphor for the people's struggle to survive. The ruralist artists (Cehov, Tolstoy, Dostoievski, Gorki, Cipiko) chose to present the village in all essential hypostases, from tantalizing work to celebrations which employ a multitude of ethnographical details. The paper lays a special emphasis on two Eastern European authors: Reymont, the Polish writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and Rebreanu, a keen observer and a pertinent analyst of the village life, situating their works at the crossroads between the German and Russian literary achievements in terms of the rural novel.