The paradox of Petkevich (on the peculiarities of the semantic structure of the memoir book by T. V. Petkevich Life is an Unpaired Boot)

Abstract

The object of consideration is the autobiographical work of Tamara Petkevich Life is an Unpaired Boot. Specifically, we are talking about the paradox which constitutes the basis of the image of the heroine-narrator’s father — Vladislav Petkevich. This follower of the Communist idea, who was characterized by exceptional moral purity, was sadistically cruel towards his eldest daughter Tamara: he beat her with a whip for no reason. The attempts of this confessional book’s author to find any rational and logical reasons for whip executions failed. This kind of mysteries remaining unresolved is extremely rare in the genre of memoir literature. The paradoxes can only exist on the periphery of the autobiographical text and are not directly connected with the main line of the traceable life. The young autobiographical character, a participant of reproduced events, may be ignorant of the logic of his own fate, but the sophisticated author-narrator looking into these events closely through the depth of time clearly sees their fundamental essence. This is true especially for authors who like T. Petkevich went through the Stalinist prisons and camps. As a result, the memoirs of T. Petkevich detect “the progressive (procedural) determination”, which, according to Gary Morson, constitutes a foundation of such classics as Eugene Onegin by A. Pushkin, The Idiot and Demons by F. Dostoevsky. The factor of demiurgic uncertainty of the authors plays an important role in each of these books. Behind the inability of the Petkevich’s heroine to unravel the mystery of the irrational cruelty that her kind father expressed towards her, we find authentic (and not fictional) author’s anxiety. Obviously, it is this particular life-likeness that has led to the resulting impact of the book on the reader.

Keywords:

T. V. Petkevich, autobiography, fate, paradox, cruelty