Representation of corporeality in Pavel Ulitin’s non-mimetic writing

Abstract

The article is about the description and analysis of corporeal categories arising in the work of the Soviet uncensored prose writer Pavel Ulitin. Although the role of one of the most “musical” writers of samizdat was fixed for the writer, his texts, despite the author’s distinct interest in the melody of speech, bring to life the complex of issues that in modern humanities is associated with the body. Constant attention to the design, interaction with various ways of representing the text (from calligraphy to typewriting) reveal the corporeal foundation of writing as such. Meaningfully, the works of Ulitin, often completely eliminating the usual depiction, also turn to the body. The methods of non-classical representation of the body are of interest to us first of all, however, in addition to immanent analysis, we will attempt to consider the identified strategies in synchrony: in the context of practices, contemporary to Ulitin not least related to the appearance of the Noveau Roman, the poetics of which is considered in relation to the processes taking place in the philosophical culture of Europe of the second half of the twentieth century.. The book “How does he hold a paddle?” as the most striking example of the author’s poetics was used as a research material.