Features of psychologism in A. Green's early prose

The subject of the research is the psychopoetics of A. Green’s early stories, written in line with realistic tradition. The relevance of the research is due to the interest of modern researchers in artistic psychology, as well as in the synthesis of psychological techniques of realism and modernism. Moreover, since the 20th century, it has remained an important task for literary studies to analyze how people’s inner world is portrayed in an interdisciplinary way. The material for analysis is a couple of stories “Hand” and “Еroshka”, in which a significant place is given to the psychologization of the characters. Consequently, the reference to the specifics of a realistic depiction of the inner human world in these stories contributes to forming a holistic view on the evolution of Green’s poetics, which also confirms the relevance of this study. The story “Hand” analyzes the poetics of the immediate, primary character's perception of another person, which brings Green’s psychologism closer to the specificity of the phenomenological prose. The process of exteriorization – through details, emotional impulses are transformed into action – is examined, as well as the principle of interiorization – external factors serve as a signal for sensory manifestations. In the material of the story "Eroshka", distortion of reality is interpreted through the hero's perception as a form of psychological defense against the traumatic situation, achieved through the unconscious displacement of anxiety. The methodological basis of the study is a hermeneutic method based on works by A. B. Esin, Y. M. Lotman and M. B. Shrpchenko, and a historical-literary approach based on the work of N. A. Kobzev, V. E. Kovski and E. I. Prohorov, dedicated to the creativity of Green. The scientific novelty of the study is that, for the first time, a typology of psychological depiction of heroes in the named stories of Green has been defined. The continuity of Green’s creativity in relation to the experience of classical Russian psychological prose has been revealed. The emphasis is placed on a kind of writer’s psychology: it is considered both as a narrative strategy and as a structure-composition specificity of texts. It was concluded that the writer already grasps the skill of psychological analysis in the first stories. The research summarizes a number of psychological techniques used by Green to depict the interaction of characters with society: detailing things, behavior and portrait, application of repetitions and contrasts, including pictures of imagined reality, display of the aberration of consciousness, as well as author’s comments, often combined with the character’s unconventional and direct speech.