The Theme And Prisoner Image Of Makanin's Novel The Prisoner Of The Caucasus

The novel The Prisoner of the Caucasus is written by Russian contemporary writer Makanin in the 1990s. It depicts the Chechnya war happening in the Caucasian areas. The novel combines various artistic styles, and forms a relationship of intertextuality with the homonymous works of Pushkin, Lermontov and Lev. Tolstoy, as well as Dostoevsky's The Idiot.The thesis first explores the relationship of the Caucasus and Russian literature from the perspective of historical and cultural origins. With the"unconsciousness"theory of Carl Jung's analytical psychology, it analyzes the Caucasian sceneries, Caucasians, Caucasian stories and writers'"Caucasus Complex"reflected from writers of different times. Then by comparing The Prisoner of the Caucasus by contemporary writer Makanin with those homonymous works of the 19th century, the thesis reveals the differences and similarities between the former and the latter in the characterization of Caucasian prisoners. Besides, through"The beauty will save the world"illustrated by both Dostoevsky in his The Idiot and Makanin, the thesis points out that the main theme of The Prison of the Caucasus is that in modern Russian society,"the beauty is incapable of saving the world","the beauty that will do"no longer exists.