At the interface between history and legend. "The Black Duchess" by Wolha Ipatava

Abstract

This article is devoted to the short story The Black Duchess by Belarusian novelist Wolha Ipatava. It attempts to defin how Ipatava processes historical subjects and motifs, and what the relations are between history in its broadest sense and the legendary events that constitute the plot (especially the sequence of events and the concept of characters). The detailed analysis concentrates on the strategies employed by the writer in the reconstruction of the past, and on the poetics and aesthetics of the work. The study of the text allows for the statement that Ipatava brings focus to the individual fates of the characters; the descriptions, events and dialogues of the protagonists, more or less connected with history, are provided from their perspective. The use of names of actual, real people adds to the historical nature of the work, as it legitimizes the dilemmas experienced or the issues discussed therein as historical, but they also complement the second, perhaps more important, legendary perspective of events. Attention is also drawn to the narrative strategies used by the Belarusian writer, particularly to the use of different time planes, which allows her to depict history as a sequence of events that set out the course of individual Ipatava, history, legend, reconstruction, nation.