On the Sense of Mystery and Genre Dilemmas Within the Category of Confession in The Prose of Svetlana Alexievich Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future Cover Image

O poczuciu tajemnicy i dylematach gatunkowych w obrębie kategorii konfesyjności w prozie Swietłany Aleksijewicz Czarnobylska modlitwa. Kronika przyszłości
On the Sense of Mystery and Genre Dilemmas Within the Category of Confession in The Prose of Svetlana Alexievich Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future

Author(s): Anna Stępniak
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Belarussian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: confession; prayer; mystery; nuclear disaster; Alexievich; document;

Summary/Abstract: The article refers to Chernobyl prayer, the documentary prose of Svietlana Alexievich. The aim of the article is to draw attention to the presence of the genres of confession and prayer in the reportage. They are used by the interlocutors, who entrusted the journalist with their accounts of the traumatic experiences in connection with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The author focuses on showing various features of both genres (intimacy, familiarity, discretion) and describes them with the perspective of an average person who unknowingly and instinctively searches in them for answers that medicine and science cannot give. Alexievich’s reportage describes the loneliness of an individual in the face of events that most ignore in silence, while their participants remain helpless and mutilated for life.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 38
  • Page Range: 301-312
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish