MYTHOPOETICS OF PERSONALISM IN JOSEPH ROTH'S NOVEL “THE HUNDRED DAYS”

Abstract

In the article the specificity of transformation of the “historical type” into symbolic and mythological is investigated on the basis of the analysis of Joseph Roth’s novel “The Hundred Days”. Distinctive images and motifs that are examples of the writer’s constant search between fiction, reality and myth are analyzed. The only historical novel of Joseph Roth is said to be a testimony of construction of the hierarchy of the interaction of myth and history. Unlike the traditional for the writer the “Habsburg myth” with its political function, the figure of Napoleon is shown as a real and imaginary one at the same time, therefore the author proposed a projection of mythopoetics of personalism on two interdependent levels – sacrum and profanum. It was established that the figure of the protagonist balances between Umberto Eco’s modern interpretations of Superman and trickster. The mythopoetics of the figure of Napoleon in Joseph Roth’s interpretation is successfully complemented by generalization/clarification in the focus of Carl Gustav Jung’s theory about archetypes and the self as well as mental mapping. The research revealed “figures in the historical material” in particular motifs of existential isolation of Napoleon as a protagonist, examples of fetishes and totems (according to the theory of Emile Durkheim), the archetype of rebirth/death, “a son’s mother-complex” and also “religious dignity”. According to the analysis the figure of Napoleon in Joseph Roth’s interpretation is only partially mythical character since on the background of the history of the French emperor, the writer depicts the tragedy of the entire generation – exiles in the post-war (after the First World War) era, those who unconditionally believed in declared ideals and values of the interwar period. The study showed the adequacy of use of classical studies in the field of psychology, anthropology, semiotics and sociology for disclosure of interactions between myth and fiction. The specifics of mythopoetics of personalism presented in the novel “The Hundred Days” shows in particular the layering of images, motifs, realities of politics, ideologies which are the basis of the text-culture, the “immersion” of Joseph Roth into the European cultural space of the 1920s and 1930s.